Works  by  Professor  William  Herbert  Hobbs 
Earthquakes,  an  Introduction  to  Seismic  Geology 

With  112  illustrations,  1907.     $2.00 

Characteristics  of  Existing  Glaciers 

140  illustrations,  1911.     $3.25 

Earth  Features  and  Their  Meanings 

An  Introduction  to  Geology  for  the  Student  and  the  General 
Reader,  493  illustrations,  1912.     $3.00 

The  World  War  and  Its  Consequences 

With  an  Introduction  by  Theodore  Roosevelt,  1919.     $2.50 


Leonard  Wood 


Leonard  Wood 

Administrator,  Soldier,  and  Citizen 

By 
William  Herbert  Hobbs 

Professor  in  the  University  of  Michigan,  Member  of  the 
Executive  Committee  of  the  National  Security  League, 
Author  of  "The  World  War  and  Its  Conitquencw,"  oto. 

With  an  Introduction  by 
Henry  A.  Wise  Wood 


Illustrated 


G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons 

New  York  and  London 

Cbe  imicfterbocfcer   press 

1920 


<.' 


. 


COPYRIGHT,  1920 

BY 

WILLIAM   HERBERT   HOBBS 


To  the  hundreds  of  thousands  of  brave  men  of  the  A  Hied  Armies 
Who  gave  their  lives  a  needless  sacrifice 
Because  the  solemn  warnings  insistently  sounded 

By  Leonard  Wood  and  Theodore  Roosevelt  were  disregarded 
by  the  American  Government. 


.1  <i  o 


FOREWORD 

No  American  who  is  solicitous  of  the  future 
of  his  country  can  well  avoid  glancing  at  the 
map  of  the  world  with  the  question  in  mind: 
By  what  means  have  some  nations  achieved 
suzerainty  over  mankind,  while  others  remain 
subordinate  nations,  whatever  be  the  nominal 
degree  of  their  independence? 

Why  are  France,  Great  Britain,  and  the 
United  States,  powers  of  the  first  order?  he 
will  ask ;  why  was  Germany  such  a  power,  and 
why  are  Italy  and  Japan  approaching  this 
high  estate?  Then  he  will  inquire  why  the 
prerogative  of  decision  among  all  the  world's 
nations  recently  gathered  at  Paris  should  have 
fallen  into  the  hands  of  three  nations,  and 
eventually  into  the  hands  of  two. 

He  will  wish  to  know  the  nature  of  the  quali 
ties  which  enabled  Germany  almost  to  gain 
the  mastery  of  Europe,  which  enabled  France 
to  endure  Germany's  attack,  and  which  en- 

7 


8  Foreword 

abled  the  English-speaking  peoples  to  over 
throw  the  one,  deliver  the  other,  and  to  come 
forth  with  the  control  of  the  world  in  their 
hands. 

These  are  deep  questions,  in  the  sense  that 
they  reach  to  the  fundamental  phenomena 
upon  which  the  structure  of  organized  society 
is  reared.  But  they  are  not  abtruse  questions ; 
they  may  be  understood  if  one  but  grasp  the 
truth  that  civilization  rests  upon  the  superi 
ority  of  its  military  power,  of  its  weapons  and 
warlike  prowess. 

If  this  were  not  so,  the  great  mass  of  man 
kind,  which  is  composed  of  savage  and  bar 
barous  races,  would  long  since  have 
overthrown  the  small  groups  of  peoples  who 
have  collectively  created  modern  society  and 
who  now  enjoy  its  fruits,  and  who,  despite 
their  insignificance  in  numbers,  are  able  to 
maintain  and  develop  this  society  in  the 
very  midst  of  hostile  multitudes.  Were  the 
military  ramparts  to  fall  by  which  this 
society  is  protected,  there  would  instantly 
occur,  not  merely  the  sack  of  a  Rome,  but 
the  destruction  of  civilization  itself. 


Foreword  9 

As  Russia — and  some  of  our  own  communi 
ties — have  recently  shown  us,  the  savage  and 
barbarous  races  are  not  confined  to  their 
native  habitats,  but  their  members  are 
amongst  us  in  great  throngs,  wearing  our 
raiment  and  speaking  our  tongue.  Some  of 
them  appear  clad  in  the  robes  of  our  learning 
and  culture,  while  simulating  belief  in  our  tra 
ditions  and  acquiescence  in  our  governmental 
institutions ;  but  they  are  nevertheless  every 
where  ready  to  throw  over  the  established 
order  so  that  they  may  possess  themselves 
of  its  fruits  without  having  to  accept  its,  to 
them,  alien  and  hateful  restraints.  One  need 
only  picture  Western  Europe,  Great  Britain, 
and  our  own  continent,  as  having  been  plunged, 
as  Russia  has  been  plunged,  into  a  condition 
of  social  and  governmental  disintegration,  to 
realize  whither  a  general  barbaric  eruption 
within  the  modern  world  would  lead  it. 

So  it  is  that  civilization  requires  for  its 
preservation  the  exercise  of  unsleeping  vigi 
lance,  within  its  borders  no  less  than  beyond 
them.  It  must  keep  itself  ready  to  defend 
promptly  at  its  centre  its  traditions,  and  to 


io  Foreword 

save  itself  from  disintegrating  revolution,  set 
afoot  by  those  not  of  Western  blood  whom  it 
has  cherished  and  taught,  and  by  their  native 
allies,  while  at  its  boundaries  the  barbarian 
must  ever  be  confronted  by  invulnerable 
barriers. 

Because  military  force  still  is,  as  it  always 
has  been,  the  bulwark  of  civilization,  the 
greatest  calamity  that  could  befall  the  human 
race  would  be  invited  by  the  disarmament  of 
its  advanced  peoples.  So  long  as  civilized 
man  shall  employ  his  knowledge,  skill,  and 
highly  developed  spiritual  powers  to  create 
and  wrield  armaments  that  are  in  complexity 
and  might  beyond  the  grasp  of  savage  or 
barbarian,  his  conceptions  of  life  will  prevail. 
But,  so  soon  as  he  shall  cease  to  cultivate  and 
himself  control  the  mechanisms  and  art  of  war 
fare,  then,  that  which  he  terms  his  social  order 
will  perish,  and  mankind  will  find  itself  once 
more  at  the  foot  of  the  ladder  of  intellectual 
growth,  spiritual  development,  and  liberty. 

If  we  consider  now  the  organized  peoples 
that  make  up  modern  society,  we  find  them 
in  various  stages  of  development.  Some,  being 


Foreword  1 1 

unable  to  govern  themselves,  are  wholly 
governed  by  their  rulers,  while  others  wholly 
govern  themselves.  Between  the  complete 
subject  and  the  complete  citizen,  history 
attests,  many  generations,  living  under  favor 
able  conditions,  must  intervene.  A  nation  of 
vassals  can  no  more  successfully  become  a 
nation  of  citizens,  at  a  single  step — as  the 
experience  of  Russia  proves — than  can  a 
nation  of  citizens  successfully  be  made  a 
nation  of  vassals.  This  should  be  borne  in 
mind  by  those  self-governing  peoples  who, 
like  ourselves,  thoughtlessly  invite  promiscu 
ous  immigration. 

Social  customs  differ,  those  of  some  peoples 
being  offensive  to  other  peoples,  while  no  two 
peoples  place  quite  the  same  emphasis  upon 
any  precept  of  the  moral  law.  As  habits  of 
thought  and  life,  and  material  necessities,  differ 
among  peoples,  so  differ  tenets  of  international 
morality,  and,  consequently,  the  reactions  of 
nations  when  international  questions  arise. 
Some  are  fortunately,  and  others  are  unfor 
tunately,  situated  with  respect  to  the  acquire 
ment  of  wealth  and  power.  Some  are  more 


12  Foreword 

keenly  alive  than  are  others  to  the  acquirement 
and  use  of  practical  knowledge.  They  differ 
in  industrial  energy  and  wisdom.  Some 
peoples  possess  the  local  sense  only,  while 
others  possess  the  world  sense:  hence  the 
former  expand  but  slowly,  while  the  latter 
reach  into  the  corners  of  the  earth,  found 
colonies  everywhere,  and  take  into  their  hands 
the  direction  of  vast  territories  and  the  seas. 

Between  the  two  extremes  are  peoples  in 
various  stages  of  culture  and  growth,  each 
dissatisfied  with  its  lot  and  ever  striving  to 
better  it  by  diplomacy  or  the  sword.  Thus, 
struggles  for  trade,  for  territorial  or  racial  ex 
pansion,  for  security,  with  their  ever  present 
possibilities  of  war,  are,  and  have  always  been, 
current  phenomena  in  the  international  life 
of  the  civilized  world. 

We  therefore  come  to  see  that  there  are  three 
permanent  dangers  which  menace  the  state, 
each  of  a  military  character,  resulting  from 
the  hostility  of  (a)  savage  or  barbaric  peoples, 
(&)  those  within  the  state  who  wish  to  over 
throw  it,  and  (c)  other,  competitive,  states. 

In  our  search  to  discover  the  qualities  which 


Foreword  13 

will  make  of  our  own  commonwealth  an  en 
during  republic  we  ask:  What  is  it  that  has 
enabled  the  English-speaking  peoples  to 
achieve  what  is  in  effect  the  mastery  of  the 
world?  Having  learned  the  cause,  we  shall 
wish  to  apply  it  diligently  in  our  affairs.  I 
recently  asked  one,  well  grounded  in  history, 
to  name  the  single  most  important  factor  in 
the  emergence  of  the  English-speaking  peoples. 
"The  unshakable  self-confidence  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxon,  "  was  the  reply.  Such  is  an  effect,  not 
a  cause,  but  its  suggestion  furnishes  an  in 
valuable  clue  to  the  cause. 

The  self-confidence  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  is 
the  stamp  of  his  victories, — of  the  victories 
of  the  English-speaking  peoples,  whose  affairs 
are  conducted  in  accordance  with  Anglo- 
Saxon  traditions  and  practices,  notwithstand 
ing  their  absorption  of  the  blood  of  other 
peoples. 

The  Anglo-Saxon  achieved  victory  over  his 
rulers  when  he  secured  liberty  of  conscience 
and  person,  and  when,  throughout  subsequent 
centuries  of  hardship,  he  perfected  himself  in  the 
practice  of  self-government.  He  has  achieved 


14  Foreword 

victory  over  surrounding  nature,  from  which  he 
has  wrung  more  useful  secrets,  and  set  them  to 
work  for  man,  than  has  all  the  world  besides. 
He  has  achieved  victory  over  the  wild  wastes 
and  tribes  of  the  earth,  which  his  organizing 
skill  has  brought  under  cultivation  and 
control.  He  has  achieved  victory  over  all  the 
peoples  that  throughout  nearly  nine  hundred 
years  have  come  against  him.  And,  as  his 
greatest  victory,  he  has  spread  the  benign 
complexion  of  his  social  and  governmental 
institutions  over  the  social  and  governmental 
institutions  of  mankind. 

But  what  are  the  characteristics  that  have 
enabled  the  so-called  Anglo-Saxon  to  achieve 
these  victories ?  The  preservation  of  his  group, 
and  the  cultivation  of  the  traditional  practices 
which  have  held  it  knit  closely  together  and 
given  it  enduring  form,  have  been  to  him 
the  first  duties  of  his  being.  To  safeguard 
these,  he  has  been  ever  ready  to  lay  down 
his  individual  life.  In  response  to  an  attack 
upon  either,  he  has  invariably  chosen  to  suf 
fer,  rather  than  to  yield.  Having  set  upon 
his  group  and  its  institutions  a  higher  value 


Foreword  15 

than  upon  his  individual  life,  he  has  been 
enduring  in  the  midst  of  hardship,  steadfast 
beneath  the  harrow  of  adverse  circumstance, 
and  fearless  under  the  threat  of  death.  In  a 
world  subject  to  volcanic  national  eruption, 
to  meteoric  national  ascension  and  cataclysmic 
eclipse,  the  Anglo-Saxon  has  neither  paused 
nor  hurried,  but  has  moved  forward  to  mastery 
by  the  application  of  inexorable  glacierlike 
pressure. 

In  all  things  he  is  practical.  He  compre 
hends  the  earth  and  the  material  realities  of 
existence,  and  deals  with  each  upon  its  own 
terms.  He  knows  that  if  men  would  stand 
firmly  they  must  set  themselves  squarely 
upon  the  ground;  but  he  knows  also  that  if 
they  would  control  themselves  and  other  men, 
they  must  cultivate  their  intellectual  and 
spiritual  qualities  and  make  of  these  the  in 
spirators  of  their  conduct.  In  him,  therefore, 
strength  is  tempered  with  kindliness;  firmness, 
with  gentleness;  justice,  with  mercy;  con 
viction,  with  tolerance;  controversy,  with 
chivalry,  and  ambition,  with  thought  for  the 
welfare  of  mankind.  In  the  Anglo-Saxon,  the 


1 6  Foreword 

materialist  and  idealist  do  not  part  company. 
Both,  as  he  instinctively  knows,  are  the  arti 
sans  of  nationality,  and  must  be  found  func 
tioning  harmoniously  in  the  daily  life  of  a 
people  if  it  is  to  endure  and  achieve  greatly. 

It  is  imperative  that  we  have  before  us  this 
view  of  the  past;  that  we  know  and  apply  the 
qualities  upon  which  our  national  life  is  based, 
as  we  enter  the  complex  struggle  for  the  pres 
ervation  of  our  institutions  into  which  we  are 
now  suddenly  plunged.  We  have  amongst  us 
those  who,  hating  the  institutions  of  civilized 
society,  would  raze  these,  and  others  who,  de 
testing  national  separatism,  would  destroy  the 
jealous  spirit  of  devoted  love  for  group  and 
country  to  which  we  owe  all  that  we  are  as  a 
race  and  a  nation,  and  replace  it  with  a  dilute 
attachment  for  mankind  in  general  and  for  no 
nation  in  particular. 

The  first  represent  the  materialist  from 
whom  the  idealist  has  parted  company,  while 
the  second  represent  the  idealist  who  has  for 
saken  the  materialist.  Both  will  inevitably 
fail  in  their  attempts  violently  to  remodel  the 
spiritual  and  material  agencies  by  which  we 


Foreword  17 

have  arrived  where  we  are.  But  we  must  be 
prepared  to  pay  the  price  of  their  defeat;  we 
must  be  ready  to  suffer  rather  than  to  yield, 
if  we  are  to  avoid  a  calamitous  transforma 
tion  within,  and  preserve  our  form  of  govern 
ment,  or  to  avoid  a  disastrous  surrender  of 
our  national  liberty  of  action,  and  maintain 
our  independence  of  foreign  control. 

The  struggles  in  which  we  are  now  engaged 
are  but  a  continuation  of  the  series  of  events 
with  which  this  book  deals.  In  all  of  these 
events  the  same  forces  are  to  be  seen  more 
or  less  in  co-operation,  the  one  striving  to 
destroy  the  national  spirit,  in  order  to  bring 
about  a  revolution  with  safety  and  profit 
to  itself;  the  other  seeking  to  betray  it,  in 
order  to  bring  all  peoples  into,  or  under  the 
control  of,  a  single  international  body.  Pa 
triotism  is  in  the  sight  of  both  an  offensive 
attribute  which,  because  it  stands  in  the 
way  of  both,  is  attacked  by  them  in  common. 
Thus  we  find  the  gross  forces  of  revolu 
tion  in  virtual  alliance  with  the  cultivated 
forces  of  ultra  idealism,  which  explains  the 
philosophy  of  those  who,  while  leading  the 


1 8  Foreword 

second,  tolerate  and  condone  the  offences  of 
the  first. 

The  recent  Preparedness  movement  was  the 
natural  expression  of  the  reaction  of  patriotic 
men  of  strong  nationalistic  feeling  against  the 
non-patriotic,  internationalistic  philosophy  of 
President  Wilson.  That  this  movement  was 
able  at  last  to  overturn  his  purpose,  and  to 
precipitate  him  into  a  war  that  was  repug 
nant  to  him,  is  not  cause  for  surprise;  but 
that  so  great  an  effort  was  needed  to  arouse 
an  English-speaking  commonwealth  to  perform 
the  patriotic  duty  of  defending  its  nationality , 
is  cause  not  alone  for  surprise,  but  for  concern, 
—concern  which  is  intensified  by  the  herculean 
efforts  now  being  required  of  another  patriotic 
group,  in  the  pending  contest  over  the  terms 
upon  which  we  shall  join  a  league  of  nations,  to 
prevent  the  same  community  from  yielding  up 
its  independence  and  surrendering  the  control 
of  its  destiny  into  the  hands  of  a  group  of 
alien  peoples. 

In  the  various  phases  of  the  struggle  for  the 
preservation  of  traditional  personal  and  na 
tional  rights,  which  began  with  the  Prepared- 


Foreword  19 

ness  movement,  there  have  stood  forth  two 
antithetic  types  of  man.  The  one,  the  de- 
molisher  and  reconstructionist  who,  whether 
as  pacifist  or  covenanter,  would  first  demolish 
and  then  abruptly  remould  the  institutions  of 
his  people,  upon  an  arbitrary  plan  of  his  own 
devising,  and  toss  his  nation  into  the  melting 
pot  of  internationalism;  the  other,  the  con 
servator,  the  patriot  committed  to  the  con 
servation  of  his  institutions  and  their  orderly 
development,  and  the  preservation  of  his 
nation's  independence,  who  believes  in  the 
painstaking  creation  of  a  condition  of  inter 
national  harmony  based  upon  justice  and 
mutual  accommodation,  but  not  upon  the 
pooling  of  sovereignties. 

Between  these  types  no  reconciliation  is 
possible,  nor  is  compromise  possible  between 
the  theories  of  life  and  government  which 
they  profess.  The  first  neither  likes  nor 
trusts  either  the  processes  by  which  Anglo- 
Saxon  civilization  has  been  achieved,  or  their 
resulting  institutions;  the  second  is  the  very 
product  of  these  processes,  and  his  free  insti 
tutions  are  the  breath  of  his  nostrils.  The 


20  Foreword 

one  is  exotic;  the  other  is  native.  The  one 
reacted  to  the  war  and  the  peace  in  ways 
wholly  unknown  to  the  history  of  English- 
speaking  peoples;  the  other  reacted  to  both 
in  normal  Anglo-Saxon  fashion. 

The  story  told  by  Professor  Hobbs  in  his 
World  War  and  Its  Consequences,  and  in  this 
book,  is  the  story  of  the  struggle  between  an 
alien  parasitic  growth,  and  the  sturdy  native 
tree  about  which  it  is  stealthily  entwining  its 
tendrils.  It  is  the  story  of  the  stout  resistance 
of  the  Anglo-Saxon  spirit  to  strangulation  by 
ostensibly  native  fingers  through  the  veins 
of  which  runs  hostile  alien  blood.  Twice  has 
the  man  of  this  book  stood  forth  as  the  defend 
ing  instrument  of  that  spirit;  at  Plattsburg, 
while  there  gathered  the  clouds  of  war,  and  at 
Omaha  and  Gary,  after  the  clouds  had  broken 
and  gone.  In  both  crises  the  native  spirit  was 
personified  in  Leonard  Wood,  and  in  both  it 
prevailed.  Did  this  soldier  and  administrator 
not  possess  in  extraordinary  degree  the  wise 
and  virile  qualities  which  have  brought  about 
and  preserve  the  ascendancy  of  our  great,  our 
dominant  race,  he  could  not  have  aroused  his 


Foreword  21 

countrymen  from  the  somnolence  of  a  spiritual 
drugging  by  the  administrative  head  of  their 
government  and  set  them  to  prepare  for  their 
hour  of  trial,  nor  could  he  have  stilled  the  revolu 
tionary  mob  at  Gary,  without  the  loss  of  a  life. 
Of  his  historian,  also,  something  is  to  be  said. 
In  these  days  of  an  idealism  unrelated  to  the 
facts  of  life,  when  the  word  patriotism  must 
be  spoken  apologetically,  if  at  all,  in  many 
halls  of  learning,  and  when  the  charter  of  our 
liberties  is  often  the  stock  subject  of  academic 
jest,  it  is  an  occurrence  of  no  small  importance 
when  one  meets  suddenly,  face  to  face,  a 
scholar  who  is  a  patriot.  Such  a  man  is  the 
author  of  this  book.  Beneath  the  superstruc 
ture  of  his  erudition,  there  lies  an  Americanism 
so  profound  and  strong  as  to  make  him  proof 
against  the  blasts  of  destructive  ephemeral 
thoughts  which,  sweeping  hither  and  thither 
across  the  intellectual  world,  press  for  a  mo 
ment  and  are  gone, — before  the  impact  of 
such  only  a  great  man  stays  always  rooted. 

HENRY  A.  WISE  WOOD. 

NEW  YORK  CITY, 
October  27,  1919. 


PREFACE 

THIS  book  makes  no  pretence  either  to  deal 
adequately  with  the  life  of  a  great  American, 
or  with  the  important  Preparedness  movement 
of  which  he  has  been  the  conspicuous  leader. 
These  will  no  doubt  be  the  subjects  of  careful 
study  and  of  extended  treatment  by  competent 
historians  in  the  near  future.  The  writer  has 
found  it  a  congenial  task  to  devote  a  portion 
of  his  vacation  to  putting  the  salient  facts  in 
order.  The  book  has  almost  written  itself, 
for  the  attempt  has  been,  so  far  as  possible, 
to  substitute  for  his  own  words  the  statements 
of  those  who  by  reason  of  their  direct  relation 
to  the  events  recorded  speak  with  the  greatest 
authority. 

W.  H.  H. 

ANN  ARBOR,  MICHIGAN, 
September  I,  1919. 


CONTENTS 

PART  I 
THE  SOLDIER  AND  ADMINISTRATOR 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

INTRODUCTION    .  31 

I. — AN  AMERICAN  SOLDIER        ...  42 

II. — THE  BUILDER  OF  REPUBLICS       .         .  60 

III. — ROOSEVELT'S  ESTIMATE  OF  WOOD        .  80 

PART  II 
PROPHET  AND  ORGANIZER  OF  PREPAREDNESS 

IV. — ORGANIZING  THE  AMERICAN  ARMY  FOR 

DEFENCE          ...  .103 

V. — THE  FIGHT  AGAINST  PACIFISM     .         .129 

VI.— THE  DARKENING  OF  COUNSEL     .         .151 

Vn. — "BROOMSTICK  PREPAREDNESS"    .         .     174 

VIII.— AT  WAR    .  ...     202 

IX. — A  SOLDIER'S  REWARD          .         .         .     233 

ADDENDUM 255 

PARTIAL   LIST  OF  WRITINGS  OF  GEN 
ERAL  LEONARD  WOOD       .         .         .    269 

BOOKS    AND    ARTICLES     CONCERNING 
GENERAL  LEONARD  WOOD        .         .271 
25 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

LEONARD  WOOD  ....       Frontispiece 
GENERAL  AND  MRS.  WOOD  AND  FAMILY   .         .       36 
LEONARD  WOOD  IN  1885          ....       44 

GENERAL    WHEELER,    GENERAL    WOOD,    AND 

COLONEL  ROOSEVELT  IN  CUBA  .         .       52 

GENERAL  WOOD  IN  1916          .         .         .         -64 

GENERAL  AND   MRS.    WOOD    AT    GOVERNOR'S 

ISLAND  .  ...     104 

GENERAL  WOOD  AT  PLATTSBURG      .         .         .132 

MAYOR  MITCHEL  AND  GENERAL  WOOD  REVIEW 
ING  PARADE  OF  THE  ALASKA  SOLDIERS  AT 
NEW  YORK  CITY  HALL  .  .  .  .146 

CHARLES  E.  HUGHES  AND  GENERAL  WOOD  AT 

PLATTSBURG    .         .         .         .         .         .160 

GENERAL  WOOD  AND  SECRETARY  GARRISON  AT 

DAYTON,  OHIO,  DURING  THE  FLOOD  .         .     166 

LETTER  TO  WOOD  FROM  COLONEL  ROOSEVELT  .  204 
GENERAL  WOOD  IN  1918  ....  216 
GENERAL  WOOD  AND  ADMIRAL  USHER  .  .  236 


27 


LEONARD   WOOD 


Part  I 
The  Soldier  and  Administrator 


INTRODUCTION 

THE  historian  of  the  future  will  be  compelled 
to  study  as  one  of  the  dominating  factors  in 
the  World  War  that  bitter  struggle  of  the 
advocates  of  national  defence  against  the 
hosts  of  pacifism,  the  later  phases  of  which 
struggle  have  become  known  in  the  United 
States  as  the  Preparedness  movement.  A 
competent  judge  has  said,  "  Nothing  of  the 
kind,  and  certainly  nothing  of  equal  extent, 
has  been  known  in  this  or  in  any  other  coun 
try.  "  The  main  object  of  the  preparedness 
men,  which  was  to  provide  for  their  country 
an  adequate  national  defence  before  its  in 
volvement  in  war,  was  not  to  be  crowned  with 
success;  but  the  salutary  effect  of  the  move 
ment  upon  the  morale  of  the  nation  through 
education  to  meet  responsibilities  when  the 
storm  should  break,  has  been  nothing  less 
than  overwhelming  and  was  a  prime  factor  in 
the  final  triumph  of  the  Allies. 


32  Leonard  Wood 

If  it  is  true,  as  is  now  generally  admitted, 
that  America's  participation  was  necessary 
for  the  winning  of  the  war,  it  follows  that  the 
eleven  months  of  indecision  and  note- writing 
which  followed  the  sinking  of  the  Lusitania, 
and  the  additional  seventeen  months  which 
separated  our  official  entry  upon  our  respon 
sibilities  from  our  effective  participation- 
two  and  one  third  years  in  all — cost  the  lives 
of  hundreds  of  thousands  of  brave  men  in  the 
Allied  armies,  an  amount  of  treasure  which 
can  scarcely  be  computed,  and  perhaps  most 
important  of  all,  it  brought  about  that  slow 
disintegration  of  morale  within  the  Allied 
countries  which  is  the  direct  consequence  of 
exhaustion  and  discouragement  and  manifests 
itself  by  the  running  amuck  of  the  disorderly 
elements  of  the  proletariat .  These  new  horrors, 
while  bearing  most  heavily  upon  our  Allies 
who  have  borne  the  burden  and  heat  of  the 
conflict,  are  now  menacing  the  peace  and 
prosperity  of  the  entire  world;  and  it  is  clear 
that  they  might  all  have  been  avoided. 

The  unfortunate  discussion  which  has  now 
developed  over  the  question  which  nation  won 


Introduction  33 

the  war — a  discussion  entirely  futile  since  all 
were  necessary — has  thus  far  overlooked  the 
vitally  important  antecedent  question  of  which 
nation  lost  the  war  for  the  Allies  during  the 
first  two  and  a  half  years  of  the  struggle.  It 
is  as  true  of  support  of  war  effort  as  of  the 
military  campaigns  that  morale  is  three 
fourths,  and  actual  physical  effort  one  fourth; 
and  it  would  be  easy  to  show  that  President 
Wilson's  deadening  repression  of  every  pa 
triotic  sentiment,  and  his  eagerness  to  launch 
one  peace  without  victory  movement  after 
another,  again  and  again  blocked  the  military 
efforts  of  the  Allied  Powers.  The  complete 
breakdown  of  the  Allies'  Balkan  policy  must 
be  studied  with  this  in  mind,  as  must  also  the 
long  delay  of  Great  Britain  to  take  the  stran 
gle  hold  and  vigorously  enforce  a  blockade 
against  the  enemy.  This  delay  was  occasioned 
largely  through  fear  of  giving  offence  to  the 
American  Government,  and  to  it  is  to  be 
charged  therefore  the  great  military  successes 
of  Germany  during  the  opening  years  of  the 
war.  Throughout  this  period  the  President 
was  addressing  to  the  British  Government 


34  Leonard  Wood 

vigorous  notes  of  protest  against  the  restric 
tions  which  were  put  upon  American  trade, 
meanwhile  negotiating  with  the  Berlin  Gov 
ernment  in  an  effort  to  abolish  all  blockade  and 
set  up  the  German  doctrine  of  Freedom  of  the 
Seas.  Had  the  British  Government  but  felt 
free  to  enforce  the  blockade  in  the  years  1914 
and  1915,  as  it  did  later,  the  great  crisis  of 
1917  which  resulted  from  submarine  successes, 
and  the  military  crisis  of  the  spring  of  1918, 
could  hardly  have  occurred.  Had  we  in 
America  through  preparedness  in  season  been 
able  to  apply  our  military  force  in  six  months, 
instead  of  seventeen  months,  after  our  ad 
mission  that  we  were  at  war,  the  end  must 
have  come  in  the  defeat  of  Germany  at  least 
a  full  year  before  the  date  of  the  signing  of  the 
armistice. 

The  American  Preparedness  movement  and 
the  British  had  many  points  in  common. 
Entrusting  its  defence  to  a  dominant  navy,  the 
British  Government  had  adopted  the  policy  of 
maintaining  no  army  of  importance  at  home; 
but  the  very  obvious  menace  which  was  rearing 
its  head  in  Germany  had  within  the  last  dec- 


Introduction  35 

ade  before  the  war  given  the  alarm  to  a  few 
far-seeing  statesmen  and  military  men.  Seven 
years  before  the  war  broke,  that  great  British 
soldier,  Field  Marshal  Earl  Roberts,  the  hero 
of  Kabul  and  Kandahar,  threw  age-long  mili 
tary  traditions  to  the  winds  and  travelled  up 
and  down  the  land  sounding  the  warning  to 
"prepare  or  perish."  His  warnings  were  re 
sented  by  the  pacifist  ministry  then  in  power, 
and  were  apparently  but  little  heeded  by  the 
common  people.  The  Minister  of  State  for 
War  administered  a  rebuke  which  was  accom 
panied  by  a  threat  to  take  away  the  Field 
Marshal's  pension  if  he  did  not  desist  from 
his  crusade.  For  such  an  unusual  departure 
from  age-long  tradition  as  that  made  by  Earl 
Roberts,  though  one  which  time  has  fully 
justified,  a  courage  was  required  far  greater 
than  that  which  leads  men  to  face  the  cannon 
in  battle. 

This  fearless  course  of  Lord  Roberts  in 
England  was  paralleled  in  the  United  States 
by  that  of  General  Leonard  Wood,  who  was 
likewise  the  ranking  general  in  the  army  and 
the  most  distinguished  soldier  in  the  coun- 


36  Leonard  Wood 

try.  Both  these  great  commanders  had  been 
at  the  German  manoeuvres  of  1902,  where 
they  watched  the  rehearsal  in  practice  of  the 
most  perfect  military  machine  that  the  world 
had  ever  seen.  ' '  Wood, ' '  said  Roberts, ' '  what 
are  our  countries  to  do  when  that  splendid 
military  machine  is  directed  against  us?" 
Each  returned  to  warn  his  country  at  whatever 
cost  to  himself.  In  each  case  the  warning  was 
unheeded  and  bitterly  resented  by  the  pacifist 
Government  in  power. 

Soldier  as  he  is,  General  Wood  has  kept  his 
temper  and,  no  matter  under  what  provoca 
tion,  he  has  never  been  led  into  criticism  of  his 
Commander-in-Chief ;  but  neither  has  he  been 
coerced  by  threats  or  intimidation  from  telling 
the  stark  truth  concerning  the  peril  that  has 
faced  his  country.  No  one  not  himself  a 
commander  of  troops  is  likely  in  any  degree 
to  be  able  to  measure  the  depths  of  the  Gen 
eral's  heart-breaking  disappointment  when 
upon  the  eve  of  embarking  for  the  front  with 
the  crack  division  which  he  had  trained,  the 
order  was  received  relieving  him  of  his  com 
mand  and  aiming  to  place  him  on  the  shelf  at 


©  Wallinger  Co. 


General  and  Mrs.  Wood  and  family 


Introduction  37 

a  deserted  military  post.  At  this  juncture 
public  opinion  became  audible  in  so  angry  a 
tone  that  the  order  had  to  be  modified  and  the 
General  permitted  to  exercise  his  genius  in 
training  a  second  division  for  field  service. 
This  second  splendid  unit  was  trained  and 
ready  to  leave  for  the  front  when  hostili 
ties  were  terminated  by  the  signing  of  the 
armistice. 

The  proponents  of  preparedness  have  always 
made  their  fight  under  most  serious  handicaps. 
It  is  peculiar  to  humanity  to  accept  of  two 
programmes  that  one  which  is  the  more  agree 
able.  Our  wishes  are  almost  inevitably  the 
father  to  our  thoughts  and  beliefs.  The  siren 
voice  of  pacifism  tells  us  that  we  are  secure  in 
a  soft  and  easy  existence  with  leisure  for  high 
thinking  and  for  boundless  material  prosperity. 
Why  should  we  resort  to  stern  self-sacrifice 
and  turn  our  thoughts  even  for  a  moment  to 
such  base  objects  as  preparing  to  destroy  the 
lives  of  our  fellow-men  made  in  the  image 
of  God?  "It  is  wicked";  they  say,  "it  is 
the  militarism  of  a  sordid  Europe  above 
which  we  have  risen  in  our  famed  American 


38  Leonard  Wood 

idealism";  and  a  picture  is  painted  of  a 
future  Utopia  of  which  no  evidence  has  yet 
been  seen. 

If,  in  addition,  the  Government  is  actively 
engaged  in  developing  the  propaganda  of 
pacifism,  it  becomes  invested  with  the  prestige 
of  legality,  and  Americans  are  a  law-abiding 
people  who  expect  to  follow  the  lead  of  their 
Government  in  all  things.  No  one  who  has 
studied  carefully  the  situation,  or  who  has 
read  with  any  fullness  the  press  comments 
during  the  days  of  suspense  which  followed 
the  sinking  of  the  Lusitania,  can  doubt  that 
if,  instead  of  his  "too  proud  to  fight"  address, 
President  Wilson  had  spoken  a  word  of  cour 
age  and  determination,  the  vast  majority  of 
his  countrymen  would  have  rallied  loyally 
behind  him  in  a  declaration  of  war  upon 
Germany. 

No  less  important  as  a  factor  in  the  great 
struggle  to  raise  the  public  morale  has  been 
that  mass  psychology  of  the  people  wrhich  is 
developed  by  mass  action  through  association, 
and  which  responds  to  stimulation — organi 
zation.  Once  a  stand  has  been  taken,  the  pride 


Introduction  39 

of  consistency  and  firmness  is  impelling  against 
any  change  of  mental  attitude.  Hence  the 
side  which  first  occupies  the  field  with  propa 
ganda  is,  quite  independent  of  the  strength 
of  its  arguments  (provided  counter  arguments 
are  not  forthcoming) ,  almost  certain  to  prevail 
because  of  the  mind  becoming  committed  and 
so  closed  to  argument.  The  organized  peace 
societies  were  first  in  the  field,  and  they  were, 
moreover,  far  better  financed  throughout 
than  were  the  defence  organizations  which  so 
tardily  followed  them.  Moreover,  such  appeal 
to  the  emotions  as  they  indulged  in  lent  itself 
readily  to  popular  oratory,  against  which  the 
appeal  to  reason  of  sober  statements  can 
hardly  be  expected  to  prevail  if  abundant  time 
for  deliberation  is  not  found. 

It  was  the  impelling  object-lessons  of  the 
war  itself  during  those  years  when  we  were 
shielded  by  the  Allies,  confirming  as  they  did 
the  arguments  of  the  preparedness  men  and 
refuting  the  shallow  prattlings  of  the  pacifist 
preachments,  which  wrought  those  profound 
changes  in  the  national  morale  which  now 
appear  so  remarkable.  In  inculcating  these 


40  Leonard  Wood 

fundamental  truths,  the  names  that  stand  out 
above  all  others  are  those  of  Leonard  Wood, 
the  American  Lord  Roberts,  and  of  Theodore 
Roosevelt,  the  vocalized  conscience  of  the 
American  people.  Associated  in  the  command 
of  the  rough  riders  during  the  Spanish-Ameri 
can  War,  their  close  friendship  was  like  that 
of  David  and  Jonathan.  Cut  down  in  the 
midst  of  the  crisis  which  had  supervened  after 
the  signing  of  the  armistice,  a  crisis  hardly 
secondary  to  that  of  the  war  itself,  the  man 
tle  of  Roosevelt  seems  to  have  fallen  upon 
Wood,  hampered  though  he  is  by  his  high 
position  in  the  army  from  entire  freedom  of 
utterance. 

The  dangers  of  wrong-headed  leadership 
are  the  same  to-day  as  they  were  in  1914.  The 
issue  is  pacifism  and  internationalism  as 
opposed  to  national  preparedness  and  full 
Americanism.  If  time  can  be  found  for  full 
deliberation  upon  the  Utopian  proposals  of 
the  pacifist  set  forth  with  so  much  noisy  propa 
ganda,  the  sound  sense  of  the  nation  may  be 
relied  upon  to  assert  itself  in  their  repudiation; 
for  Americanism  has  from  the  beginning  of 


Introduction  41 

our  history  been  a  dominant  national  trait, 
and  throughout  history  nationalism  has  al 
ways  been  immensely  stimulated  by  triumphs 
in  foreign  wars. 


CHAPTER   I 

AN    AMERICAN    SOLDIER 

A  characteristic  incident — Wood's  early  life — He  enters  the  army 
as  a  contract  surgeon — He  takes  part  in  Lawton's  expedition 
against  Geronimo — Takes  command  of  the  infantry  when  no 
line  officers  are  left — Is  given  the  Congressional  Medal  of 
Honor — Ordered  to  Washington  to  become  attending  surgeon 
to  President  Cleveland — Meets  Theodore  Roosevelt — Wood 
organizes  the  "Rough  Riders"  and  becomes  Colonel  of 
Volunteers — The  battle  of  Las  Guasimas — Commands  a 
brigade  at  battle  of  San  Juan  Hill — Becomes  Governor  of 
Santiago  Province — Cleaning  a  pest-ridden  city — The 
regeneration  of  a  province — With  one  sentry  the  General 
suppresses  a  riot. 

WHEN  General  Wood  held  the  post  of  Chief 
of  Staff  of  the  United  States  Army,  the  highest 
nosition  in  the  service,  it  is  reported  that  a 
lanky  Western  fellow  whose  gait  proclaimed 
that  he  had  spent  his  life  in  the  saddle  wan 
dered  into  the  War  Department. 

"Who  was  that  bull-bison  who  dashed  past 
me  and  bolted  through  that  door  as  if  it 
hadn't  any  business  bein'  in  the  way?"  he 
inquired. 

42 


An  American  Soldier  43 

"That  was  General  Wood,"  solemnly  replied 
the  doorkeeper. 

"He  covers  the  ground  mighty  decided," 
remarked  the  saddle  man.  "Wonder  if  he's 
any  relative  of  Doc  Wood — Doc  Len  Wood, 
who  used  to  be  with  the  Fourth  Cavalry  in 
Arizona,  and  went  with  the  Rough  Riders 
to  Cuby,  and  afterward  President  McKinley 
made  him  Governor." 

"That  was  the  General  Wood  himself," 
replied  the  doorkeeper. 

"You're  guyin'  me,"  said  the  Westerner. 
"Maybe  you  think  I  don't  know  Len  Wood. 
Waal,  I  do  then.  I  served  in  the  Fourth 
Cavalry  through  the  Geronimo  campaign 
when  Wood  got  his  breakin'  in — a  lean,  clean- 
cut,  yellow-white-headed  contract  doctor;  but 
he  made  a  go  of  it,  by  gosh !  He  wasn't  much 
to  look  at,  but  we  soon  caught  on  that  what 
little  stuffin'  there  was  in  him  was  all  right, 
and  before  he  was  with  us  long,  there  wasn't  a 
man  could  best  him.  Doc  was  always  right 
on  hand  whenever  there  was  a  man  to  be 
pulled  through.  We  come  to  think  a  powerful 
lot  of  Len  Wood,  back  there  in  '86.  You 


44  Leonard  Wood 

never  could  get  talk  enough  out  of  him  to  call 
it  answerin'  back,  but  whenever  it  was  doin* 
instead  of  talking  he  was  front,  rear,  and  both 
flanks.  He  had  an  eye  in  his  head  that  you 
didn't  want  to  have  hit  you  if  you  wasn't 
satisfied  to  have  it  see  clean  through."  He 
paused  abruptly  and  settled  back  against  the 
wall,  for  the  door  flew  open  and  General  Wood 
emerged,  tall,  massive,  with  deep  chest  and 
powerful  shoulders,  and  quick  and  elastic  in 
every  motion. 

As  he  passed  the  old  soldier  the  General 
stopped  and  extending  his  hand  said  quietly, 
" Hello,  Bill,  what  brings  you  here?" 

And  the  writer  in  the  Independent  who  has 
put  the  incident  on  record  adds  truly,  "It 
was  characteristic  of  the  man.  He  is  cordial, 
democratic,  and  as  charming  as  a  man  as  he  is 
energetic  as  a  soldier."  The  incident  shows, 
what  is  confirmed  by  pictures,  that  the  power 
ful  physique  of  the  General,  that  makes  him 
conspicuous  in  any  assembly,  has  been  largely 
developed  while  he  has  been  making  his  career. 

Though  born  in  1860  at  Winchester,  New 
Hampshire,  Leonard  Wood  grew  up  at  Pocas- 


Anderson  Photo  Co. 


Leonard  Wood  in  1885 


An  American  Soldier  45 

set  on  Cape  Cod,  a  little  village  only  about 
fifteen  miles  from  Plymouth  Rock,  where  his 
ancestors  had  landed  in  1620.  The  boy  grew 
up  with  all  the  Cape  Codder's  love  of  the  sea, 
and  his  early  ambition  was  to  enter  the  United 
States  Navy.  He  became  expert  in  the  hand 
ling  of  small  boats  and  loved  most  of  all  to  sail 
his  light  craft  in  stormy  weather. 

Wood's  father,  a  veteran  of  the  Civil  War, 
was  a  country  doctor  of  small  means,  and 
with  the  aid  of  a  hard-earned  scholarship  the 
boy  made  his  way  through  college  by  tutoring 
those  students  who  were  more  favored  than  he 
in  this  world's  goods.  In  1884  he  received 
his  diploma  from  the  Harvard  University 
Medical  School  as  Doctor  of  Medicine.  After 
a  year  and  a  half  of  practice  as  interne  in 
the  Boston  City  Hospital,  and  eight  months' 
practice  in  the  city,  he  succumbed  to  the 
strong  impulse  to  get  into  the  service  of  his 
country  and  took  examinations  for  the  position 
of  army  surgeon. 

Wood  passed  second  in  the  examination  in  a 
class  of  fifty-nine,  and  there  being  no  vacancy 
at  the  time  available,  he  gladly  volunteered 


46  Leonard  Wood 

for  the  position  of  contract  surgeon  with  the 
expedition  under  Captain  H.  W.  Lawton 
which  was  just  then  starting  out  to  capture 
hostile  Apaches  under  the  notorious  chief 
Geronimo.  It  was  this  Captain  Lawton  who 
rose  from  the  ranks  to  be  Major  General 
in  the  Regular  Army,  and  who  was  later  killed 
in  the  Philippine  campaign  greatly  beloved 
throughout  the  service. 

Lawton's  expedition  against  Geronimo 
crossed  the  border  into  the  provinces  of  Sonora 
and  Chihuahua  in  Old  Mexico,  and,  in  follow 
ing  the  wily  Geronimo  and  his  band  until  all 
were  either  captured  or  had  surrendered,  the 
command  travelled  in  all  more  than  two 
thousand  miles  over  broken  and  generally 
desert  country.  The  region  is  a  volcanic 
plateau  with  ranges  of  broken  mountains 
separated  by  canons  and  almost  devoid  of 
water.  The  heat  was  so  intense  that  the 
hands  could  not  be  held  against  the  surface  of 
the  rocks  or  upon  the  metal  parts  of  the  rifles. 
This  Mexican  wilderness  so  new  to  the  troopers 
had  been  gone  over  almost  inch  by  inch  by  the 
Apaches,  who  could  moreover  support  life 


An  American  Soldier  47 

on  roots,  mice  and  rats,  whereas  the  soldiers' 
provisions  had  to  be  brought  in  on  pack  ani 
mals.  The  party  consisted  of  fifty  soldiers 
and  twenty  Indian  scouts  with  officers,  but  the 
majority  in  the  command  were  used  up  and 
left  behind  long  before  the  chase  had  ended. 
Lawton  and  Wood  were  the  only  officers  who 
went  through  the  entire  campaign,  and  after 
the  infantry  had  been  left  without  any  line 
officers,  Wood  was  at  his  own  request  given 
the  command  in  addition  to  performing  his 
duties  as  surgeon.  On  one  occasion  he  trav 
elled  one  hundred  and  thirty-six  miles  in 
thirty-six  hours,  half  of  it  on  foot  and  half  on 
horseback.  He  walked  with  the  scouts  all 
day,  rode  seventy  miles  with  dispatches  the 
following  night,  and  next  morning  took  his 
place  with  the  marching  column. 

During  his  services  in  this,  his  initial  cam 
paign,  Wood  was  made  first  lieutenant  and 
assistant  surgeon  in  the  Regular  Army,  and 
for  distinguished  gallantry  in  service  was 
awarded  by  Congress  the  coveted  Medal  of 
Honor,  the  American  equivalent  of  the  British 
Victoria  Cross.  Five  years  later  (January  6, 


48  Leonard  Wood 

1891)  he  was  commissioned  a  captain.  In  a 
report  to  General  Miles,  Captain  Lawton 
wrote  in  1894: 

"Concerning  Dr.  Leonard  Wood,  I  can  only 
repeat  what  I  have  before  reported  officially, 
and  what  I  have  said  to  you;  that  his  ser 
vices  during  that  trying  campaign  were  of 
the  highest  order.  I  speak  particularly  of 
services  other  than  those  devolving  upon 
him  as  a  medical  officer ;  services  as  a  combat 
or  line  officer,  voluntarily  performed.  He 
sought  the  most  difficult  and  dangerous 
work,  and  by  his  determination  and  courage 
rendered  a  successful  issue  in  the  campaign 
possible." 

Later,  in  a  letter  to  the  Governor  of  Massa 
chusetts,  Lawton  wrote: 

4 '  I  served  through  the  War  of  the  Rebel 
lion,  and  in  many  battles,  but  in  no  instance 
do  I  remember  such  devotion  to  duty  or 
such  an  example  of  courage  and  persever 
ance.  It  was  mainly  due  to  Captain  Wood's 


An  American  Soldier  49 

loyalty  and  resolution  that  the  expedition 
was  successful.  He  will  be  a  credit  to  his 
State  in  any  capacity  of  soldierly  duty." 

In  endorsing  Colonel  Lawton's  recommenda 
tion  of  Captain  Wood,  General  Miles,  com 
manding  the  department,  wrote: 

1 '  I  now  most  earnestly  renew  the  recom 
mendation,  calling  especial  attention  to  the 
letter  of  Colonel  Lawton,  which  describes 
one  of  the  most  laborious,  persistent,  and 
heroic  campaigns  in  which  men  were  ever 
engaged  and  the  fact  that  Captain  Leonard 
Wood,  Assistant  Surgeon,  volunteered  to 
perform  the  extraordinarily  hazardous  and 
dangerous  service  is  creditable  to  him  in 
the  highest  degree.  For  his  gallantry  on 
the  1 3th  of  July  in  the  surprise  and  cap 
ture  of  Geronimo's  camp,  I  recommend 
he  be  brevetted  for  his  services  on  that 
date." 

Captain  Wood  remained  for  some  years  with 
the  army  in  the  Southwest,  taking  part  in  other 


50  Leonard  Wood 

stirring  frontier  work,  which  included  a  dash 
after  the  "Apache  Kid"  and  a  heliographic 
survey  of  sections  of  Arizona.  He  was  then 
ordered  to  Washington,  where  he  became  the 
attending  surgeon  at  the  White  House  during 
Cleveland's  and  a  portion  of  McKinley's  ad 
ministration.  Here  he  was  in  close  confiden 
tial  relations  with  two  presidents  and  had  quite 
unusual  opportunities  to  learn  something  of 
national  politics  and  of  the  duties  and  respon 
sibilities  of  the  Chief  Executive.  It  was  in 
his  capacity  as  surgeon  to  the  President  that 
two  years  before  the  outbreak  of  the  Spanish- 
American  War  Wood  first  met  Theodore 
Roosevelt  at  a  dinner  in  Washington,  and  at 
once  entered  upon  that  close  personal  friend 
ship  which  profoundly  affected  the  lives  of 
both  these  strenuous  Americans.  This  close 
association  of  two  strong  men,  fraught  as  it 
was  with  so  much  of  good  to  their  country,  is 
unique  in  the  nation's  history.  Both  men  saw 
clearly  the  impending  conflict  with  Spain, 
and  both  planned  to  bear  a  part  in  the  war. 
As  Assistant  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  Roosevelt 
was  able  to  bring  about  those  essential  reforms 


An  American  Soldier  51 

which,  taken  in  time,  had  so  much  to  do  with 
our  success  when  the  trial  came. 

Unprepared  on  the  military  side,  as  the 
country  was  when  the  war  broke,  Senator 
Warren  of  Montana  better  than  most  men  at 
the  Capitol  knew  the  great  West  and  the 
importance  of  utilizing  its  men  hardened  to 
outdoor  life.  He  was  able  to  secure  from  Con 
gress  the  authorization  for  the  raising  of  three 
regiments  of  volunteer  cavalry.  The  first  of 
these,  and  the  only  one  which  saw  service  in 
Cuba  was  organized  by  Wood  with  Roosevelt's 
assistance  and  became  known  as  the  ''Rough 
Riders."  The  splendid  record  of  this  unit  is 
such  recent  history  and  so  well  known  as  to- 
need  no  repetition  here.  What  is  less  familiar 
is  the  remarkable  way  in  which  the  regiment 
was  organized,  equipped,  brought  to  the  port 
of  debarkation,  embarked  and  landed  in  Cuba, 
and  put  through  two  offensive  battles — all 
within  sixty  days.  This  was  a  work  of  genius 
which  depended  upon  Wood's  knowing  in 
advance  where  the  necessary  articles  of  equip 
ment  were  to  be  found,  how  to  substitute  for 
them  when  they  were  not  available,  as  well  as 


52  Leonard  Wood 

upon  his  tireless  energy,  although  it  also  de 
pended  in  no  small  measure  upon  his  personal 
friendship  with  the  Secretary  of  War  which 
permitted  him  to  cut  the  endless  red  tape 
which  hampered  all  our  movements. 

It  is  a  common  error  to  suppose  that  Wood 
was  greatly  favored  by  fortune  in  his  appoint 
ment  to  the  command  of  the  regiment.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  he  had  for  years  been  studying 
in  preparation  for  line  duty.  It  was  because  of 
strong  recommendations  made  by  such  fight 
ing  generals  as  Lawton,  Forsythe,  Graham,  and 
others  of  the  regular  service  that  Secretary 
Alger  gave  him  the  commission. 

In  the  earlier  of  the  two  actions  in  which  the 
regiment  fought,  the  battle  of  Las  Guasimas, 
General  S.  B.  M.  Young  commanded  the 
Second  Cavalry  Brigade  which  included  the 
Rough  Riders.  In  his  report  General  Young 
said: 

"I  cannot  speak  too  highly  of  the  efficient 
manner  in  which  Colonel  Wood  handled  his 
regiment  and  of  his  magnificent  behavior  on 
the  field.  Both  Colonel  Wood  and 


©u.  &  u. 

General  Wheeler,  General  Wood,  and  Colonel  Roosevelt  in  Cuba 


An  American  Soldier  53 

Lieutenant  Colonel  Roosevelt  disdained  to 
take  advantage  of  shelter  or  cover  from  the 
enemy's  fire  while  any  of  their  men  remained 
exposed  to  it — an  error  of  judgment,  but 
happily  on  the  heroic  side." 

Before  the  later  and  more  general  fight 
ing  about  San  Juan  hill,  which  ended  in  the 
surrender  of  Santiago,  General  Young  was 
stricken  down  with  fever,  and  as  a  consequence 
Wood  was  placed  in  command  of  the  Cavalry 
Brigade,  Roosevelt  succeeding  to  the  com 
mand  of  the  Rough  Riders.  The  division 
commander,  General  Joe  Wheeler,  in  his  report 
of  the  battle  said,  "  Too  much  credit  cannot  be 
given  to  the  gallant  brigade  commanders, 
General  Wood,  etc."  The  corps  commander 
reported:  'The  following  officers  were  con 
spicuous  for  their  bravery  and  handled  their 
troops  so  well  I  desire  to  recommend  them  for 
promotion :  .  .  .  Colonel  Wood  to  be  briga 
dier  general,  etc."  Later  he  reported,  "I 
think  General  Wood  by  far  the  best  man  to 
leave  in  command  of  the  city  of  Santiago,  and 
perhaps  of  the  whole  district." 


54  Leonard  Wood 

The  command  of  the  city  and  province  of 
Santiago  brought  in  a  few  months  the  advance 
in  rank  to  Major  General  of  Volunteers  in  rec 
ognition  of  his  exceptional  service  there.  The 
story  of  how  General  Wood  cleaned  up  Santi 
ago  is  one  that  Americans  are  justly  proud  of, 
for  it  shows  what  American  energy  when  com 
bined  with  genius  for  administration  can  ac 
complish  even  under  the  most  discouraging 
conditions.  Before  the  Spaniards  had  been 
besieged  in  this  city  of  more  than  forty  thou 
sand  inhabitants,  it  had  been  notorious  as  a 
plague  spot.  It  had  been  said  of  it  by  an  old 
merchant  captain  that  "it  could  be  smelt  ten 
miles  at  sea." 

When  General  Wood  was  first  placed  in 
charge,  the  city  had  been  under  siege  with 
a  considerable  Spanish  army  in  occupation. 
Bodies  of  the  dead  lay  in  the  streets  with  vul 
tures  feasting  on  the  carrion.  The  inhabitants 
were  starving,  and  women  stretched  gaunt 
arms  from  the  windows  begging  for  food. 
Little  naked  children,  their  distended  ab 
domens  telling  of  the  famine,  crawled  under 
the  legs  of  the  horses  and  appealed  for  crusts. 


An  American  Soldier  55 

A  British  writer  who  was  an  eye-witness  said 
in  the  Nineteenth  Century : 

"If  ever  in  this  world  the  extraordinary 
man,  the  man  of  destiny,  the  man  of  pre 
eminent  powers  and  resource,  was  needed, 
it  was  in  Santiago  de  Cuba  during  the  latter 
part  of  July,  1 898 .  The  occasion  demanded 
first  a  physician  to  deal  with  the  tremendous 
sanitary  needs;  then  a  soldier,  to  suppress 
turbulence  and  effect  a  quick  restoration  of 
law  and  order;  and,  finally,  a  statesman,  to 
re-establish  and  perfect  a  Civil  Government. 
In  General  Wood  was  found  a  man  who,  by 
nature,  education,  and  experience,  combined 
in  himself  a  generous  share  of  the  special 
skill  of  all  these  three.  By  special  education 
and  subsequent  practice  he  was  a  physician; 
by  practice  and  incidental  education,  added 
to  a  natural  bent,  he  was  a  soldier  and  a 
law-giver." 

After  four  months  of  American  rule,  the 
people  had  been  rescued  from  starvation,  one 
of  the  foulest  cities  on  earth  had  been  trans- 


56  Leonard  Wood 

formed  into  one  of  the  cleanest,  the  average 
daily  death  rate  had  been  reduced  from  two 
hundred  to  ten,  street  and  road  improvement 
was  proceeding  apace,  enormous  reductions 
of  expenses  had  taken  place,  the  prisons  had 
been  cleared  of  persons  held  for  trivial  of 
fences  without  trial,  and  had  been  in  addition 
thoroughly  cleaned,  courts  had  been  reformed, 
the  press  made  free,  business  had  recovered 
and  was  full  of  confidence. 

The  British  observer  who  has  already  been 
quoted  says: 

'This  unparalleled  regeneration  had  been 
wrought,  not  by  a  host  of  men  native  to  the 
locality,  and  occupying  offices  long  estab 
lished,  and  enjoying  an  official  prestige, 
but  by  an  American  Brigadier  General  of 
Volunteers,  a  stranger  to  the  place  and  the 
people,  embarked  in  the  work  on  a  moment's 
notice,  and  having  for  his  immediate  aids 
only  a  few  fellow  army  officers,  some  of 
whom  had  been  out  of  West  Point  less  than 
two  years,  and  all  of  whom  were  as  new  to 
the  situation  as  himself.  It  was  the  tour 


An  American  Soldier  57 

de  force  of  a  man  of  genius ;  for  in  the  harder, 
more  fundamental  of  the  tasks  that  con 
fronted  him  here  General  Wood  had  no 
previous  experience." 

The  General  himself  penetrated  into  the 
noisome  places  where  pestilence  hovered,  and 
his  officers  and  men  took  their  cue  from  the 
Chief.  He  came  in  touch  with  all  classes  of  the 
population  and  daily  sat  in  judgment  on  trivial 
as  well  as  more  serious  cases  until  a  proper 
system  of  courts  was  set  up  and  able  to  dis 
pense  j  udgment .  Taken  down  with  the  Calen- 
tura,  or  Cuban  fever,  a  report  came  in  of  a 
bloody  riot  in  which  the  newly  established 
rural  police  and  a  body  of  negro  soldiers  had 
been  involved.  He  was  up  at  once  and  spent 
hours  at  the  telephone  conducting  the  investi 
gation,  and  the  next  day  he  journeyed  by  train 
to  the  scene  of  the  trouble  to  pursue  his  ex 
amination  further. 

Feeling  between  the  Cubans  and  the  Span 
iards  who  had  so  recently  been  their  tyran 
nical  masters  was  naturally  most  bitter  on 
the  island.  One  evening  a  mob  of  several 


5#  Leonard  Wood 

hundred  Cubans  stormed  the  Spanish  Club  on 
the  Plaza  de  Armas,  using  bricks  and  stones. 
The  General  was  working  late  in  his  office  in 
the  palace  across  the  Plaza  with  a  single  sentry 
on  duty.  A  man  rushed  up  with  the  cry, 
" Where's  the  General,  quick?"  Before  the 
sentry  could  report,  the  General  had  come  out 
carrying  his  riding  whip  and  replied,  "I  have 
heard  the  row.  We  will  go  over  and  stop  it." 
Crossing  the  square  with  the  one  American 
soldier,  the  General  said  quietly,  "  Just  shove 
them  back,  sentry."  The  soldier  swung  his 
rifle  and  the  way  was  cleared  in  front  of  the 
door,  after  which  the  General  gave  the  order, 
"  Now  shoot  the  first  man  who  places  his  foot 
upon  that  step,"  and  went  back  to  his  office. 
The  report  upon  this  incident  says,  ''Within 
an  hour  the  mob  had  dispersed,  subdued  by 
two  men,  one  rifle,  and  a  riding  whip.  And 
the  lesson  is  still  kept  in  good  memory." 

General  Wood  paid  for  his  fearlessness  in 
going  about  in  fever-infested  portions  of  the 
city  by  being  struck  down  by  yellow  fever  in 
1898.  When  in  the  spring  of  1899  he  left 
Santiago  for  a  brief  visit  to  the  United  States, 


An  American  Soldier  59 

the  people  of  the  city  presented  him  with  a 
testimonial  engrossed  in  Spanish  which  trans 
lated  reads  in  part: 

"The  people  of  the  City  of  Santiago  de 
Cuba  to  General  Leonard  Wood  .  .  .  the 
greatest  of  all  your  successes  is  to  have  won 
the  confidence  and  the  esteem  of  a  people  in 
trouble." 


CHAPTER  II 

THE    BUILDER    OF    REPUBLICS 

Military  Governor  of  Cuba — Gains  good- will  of  the  Catholic 
Church — Wood's  modest  summary  of  his  work — The  scourge 
of  yellow  fever — The  fever  eradicated — A  Cuban  republic 
set  up — Secretary  Root's  appraisal  of  Wood — The  Rathbone 
charges — Appointed  civil  governor  of  Moro  Province  in  the 
Philippines — His  studies  en  route — The  prejudice  against 
him  in  the  army — Studying  the  Moros  upon  the  ground — 
War  with  the  Datu  AH — Fierce  battle  in  a  volcanic  crater — 
A  congressional  inquiry — Changed  feeling  in  the  army — 
Made  grand  officer  of  the  Legion  of  Honor. 

THE  remarkable  success  which  had  been 
achieved  by  General  Wood  as  Governor  of 
the  Province  of  Santiago  led  to  his  appoint 
ment  as  Military  Governor  of  Cuba,  in  which 
office,  as  a  result  of  centuries  of  misrule,  vast 
problems  of  reform  had  to  be  taken  up  and 
solved.  None  of  these  were  more  delicate  for 
a  Protestant  Governor  to  handle  than  the 
questions  concerning  the  Catholic  Church, 
which  was  established  here  in  power  as  it  was 

in  every  other  Spanish  colony.     It  is  a  tribute 

60 


The  Builder  of  Republics        61 

no  less  to  the  firmness  than  to  the  tact  of  the 
Governor  that  when  he  was  stricken  down 
with  typhoid  fever,  the  Bishop  of  Havana  led 
the  people  of  the  island  in  solicitous  interest 
and  had  prayers  offered  in  the  churches 
throughout  the  island  for  his  recovery. 

General  Wood  was  Military  Governor  of 
Cuba  from  December  12,  1899,  until  the  trans 
fer  of  the  government  to  the  Cuban  Republic 
on  May  20,  1902,  His  own  modest  summary 
of  the  transformations  which  had  been 
wrought  during  this  period  has  been  pub 
lished  in  volume  xxi.  of  the  Annals  of  the 
American  Academy  of  Political  and  Social 
Science,  from  which  article  the  following 
paragraphs  have  been  taken: 

"  Conditions  in  Santiago  at  the  time  of 
occupancy  were  as  unfavorable  as  can  be 
imagined.  Yellow  fever,  pernicious  mala 
ria,  and  intestinal  fevers  were  all  prevalent 
to  an  alarming  extent.  The  city  and  sur 
rounding  country  was  full  of  sick  Spanish 
soldiers,  starving  Cubans,  and  the  sick  of 
our  army.  The  sanitary  conditions  were 


62  Leonard  Wood 

indescribably  bad.  There  was  little  or  no 
water  available  and  the  conditions  were 
such  as  can  be  imagined  to  exist  in  a  tropi 
cal  city  following  a  siege  and  capture  in  the 
most  unhealthy  season  of  the  year.  .  .  . 

"In  October  the  Spanish  garrison,  con 
sisting  of  some  twelve  thousand  men,  was 
withdrawn  from  the  northwestern  portion 
of  the  Province.  Upon  their  withdrawal 
it  was  found  that  smallpox  was  epidemic  in 
most  of  the  towns  that  had  been  occupied 
and  an  investigation  showed  that  there 
were  approximately  three  thousand  cases 
of  smallpox  existing  in  the  Holguin  district 
and  that  the  disease  was  of  the  malignant 
type.  .  .  .  The  efforts  taken  were  effec 
tive  in  bringing  the  disease  to  a  summary 
conclusion,  and  since  this  epidemic  Cuba 
has  been  free  from  smallpox.  .  .  . 

"With  the  stamping  out  of  this  epidemic, 
the  worst  features  of  the  sanitary  situation 
were  removed,  and  affairs  began  to  have  a 
more  hopeful  outlook.  .  .  . 

"Conditions  were  encountered  in  Havana 
similar  to  those  in  Santiago,  but  not  so 


The  Builder  of  Republics        63 

severe,  as  the  city  had  not  undergone  a 
siege.   .    .    . " 

Of  the  remarkable  work  of  the  commission 
which  Wood  organized  under  Dr.  Walter 
Reed  with  a  view  to  the  solution  of  the  prob 
lem  of  transmission  of  yellow  fever  and  the 
phenomenal  success  which  was  achieved,  the 
General  says : 

"The  work  of  the  commission,  of  which 
Dr.  Reed  was  the  President  and  directing 
spirit,  is  of  the  greatest  importance  to 
humanity  at  large.  No  medical  discovery 
of  equal  importance  has  been  made  since  the 
days  of  vaccination;  and,  as  time  goes  on, 
the  immense  value  of  the  work  done,  prin 
cipally  by  this  officer  and  his  incidental 
associates,  will  receive  that  degree  of  appre 
ciation  and  recognition  which  it  so  justly 
deserves." 

Summarizing  his  report  he  says: 

"The  Government  was  transferred  as  a 
going  concern.  All  the  public  offices  were 


64  Leonard  Wood 

filled  with  competent,  well-trained  employ 
ees;  the  island  was  free  from  debt  and  had 
a  surplus  of  a  million  and  a  half  dollars  in 
the  treasury ;  was  possessed  of  a  thoroughly 
trained  and  efficient  personnel  in  all  depart 
ments;  completely  equipped  buildings  for 
the  transaction  of  public  business;  the  ad 
ministration  of  justice  was  free;  habeas 
corpus  had  been  put  in  force,  police  courts 
had  been  established;  a  new  marriage  law 
on  lines  proposed  by  the  Roman  Catholic 
Bishop  of  Havana,  giving  equal  rights  to 
all  denominations,  was  in  operation;  the 
people  were  governed,  in  all  municipalities, 
by  officials  of  their  own  choice  elected  at 
the  polls;  trials  in  Cuban  courts  were  as 
prompt  as  in  any  State  of  the  Union,  and 
life  and  property  were  absolutely  safe; 
sanitary  conditions  were  better  than  those 
existing  in  most  parts  of  the  United  States; 
yellow  fever  had  been  eradicated  from  the 
island ;  modern  systems  of  public  education, 
including  a  university,  high  school,  and 
nearly  three  thousand  seven  hundred  public 
schools  had  been  established;  also  well- 


©u.  &  u. 


General  Wood  in  1916 


The  Builder  of  Republics        65 

organized  departments  of  charities  and 
public  works.  The  island  was  well  sup 
plied  with  hospitals  and  asylums;  beggars 
were  almost  unknown.  A  new  railroad 
law  had  been  promulgated;  custom  houses 
had  been  equipped  and  thoroughly  es 
tablished;  the  great  question  of  church 
property  had  been  settled;  .  .  .  public 
order  was  excellent;  the  island  possessed 
a  highly  organized  and  efficient  rural 
guard;  an  enormous  amount  of  public 
works  had  been  undertaken  and  com 
pleted;  harbors  and  channels  were  buoyed; 
old  lighthouses  had  been  thoroughly 
renovated  and  new  ones  built;  in  short, 
the  Government  as  transferred  was  in  ex 
cellent  running  order.  .  .  .  The  insular 
government  was  undertaken  without  a 
dollar  of  public  money  on  hand,  except  the 
daily  collection  of  customs  and  internal 
revenue,  and  involved  the  collection  and 
disbursement  of  $57,197,140.80,  during  its 
existence  for  improvement  in  material  con 
ditions  and  the  upbuilding  of  insular  insti 
tutions.  This  sum  does  not  include  the 


66  Leonard  Wood 

municipal  revenue,  only  the  general  insular 
revenues. 

' 'The  work  called  for  and  accomplished 
was  the  building  up  of  a  REPUBLIC,  in  a 
country  70  per  cent,  of  the  people  of  which 
were  illiterate ;  where  they  had  lived  always 
as  a  military  colony;  where  general  elections 
as  we  understand  them  were  unknown;  in 
fact,  it  was  a  work  which  called  for  prac 
tically  a  rewriting  of  the  administrative  law 
of  the  land;  ...  in  short,  the  establish 
ment,  in  a  little  over  three  years,  in  a  Latin 
military  colony,  in  one  of  the  most  un 
healthy  countries  of  the  world,  of  a  republic 
modelled  closely  upon  the  lines  of  our  own 
great  Anglo-Saxon  Republic;  and  the  trans 
fer  to  the  Cuban  people  of  the  republic  so 
established,  free  from  debt,  healthy,  orderly, 
well- equipped,  and  with  a  good  balance  in 
the  treasury.  All  of  this  work  was  accom 
plished  without  serious  friction.  The  island 
of  Cuba  was  transferred  to  its  people  as 
promised,  and  was  started  on  its  career  in 
good  condition  and  under  the  most  favorable 
circumstances. ' ' 


The  Builder  of  Republics        67 

Of  what  this  accomplishment  by  a  young 
Major  General  of  Volunteers  with  little  ex 
perience  to  guide  him  really  signified,  Elihu 
Root,  then  the  Secretary  of  War  under  whose 
jurisdiction  was  the  Insular  Government,  had 
this  to  say : 

"  Out  of  an  utterly  prostrate  colony  a  free 
republic  was  built  up,  the  work  being  done 
with  such  signal  ability,  integrity,  and  suc 
cess  that  the  new  nation  started  under  more 
favorable  conditions  than  has  ever  before 
been  the  case  in  any  single  instance  among 
her  fellow  Spanish-American  republics. 
This  record  stands  alone  in  history,  and  the 
benefit  conferred  thereby  on  the  people  of 
Cuba  was  no  greater  than  the  honor  con 
ferred  upon  the  people  of  the  United 
States." 

Lord  Cromer,  Great  Britain's  greatest  colo 
nial  administrator  and  the  maker  of  modern 
Egypt,  is  reported  to  have  said  of  Leonard 
Wood's  work  in  Cuba  that  it  was  "  the  greatest 
piece  of  colonial  administration  in  all  history." 


68  Leonard  Wood 

It  is  further  reported  of  him  that  when  asked 
to  name  the  best  person  to  succeed  him  in  his 
difficult  task,  the  Earl  replied  that  the  best 
man  was  not  available  since  he  was  an  Ameri 
can  citizen. 

It  will  hardly  be  supposed  that  this  phe 
nomenal  transformation  of  a  Spanish  colony 
could  have  been  accomplished  without  the 
making  of  powerful  enemies.  E.  G.  Rath- 
bone,  the  Cuban  Director  General  of  Posts, 
a  friend  and  favorite  of  Mark  Hanna,  was 
convicted  and  sent  to  prison  because  of  the 
extensive  frauds  which  the  Governor  had 
uncovered  in  the  postal  department.  Later, 
when  Wood  was  nominated  for  Major  General 
in  the  Regular  Army,  serious  charges  were 
preferred  against  him  by  Rathbone,  among 
them  being  favoritism,  bribery,  libel,  and 
confusion  of  his  accounts.  The  matters  re 
ferred  to  in  these  charges  were  fully  aired  in  an 
investigation  by  a  committee  of  Congress  and 
found  to  be  without  foundation. 

A  year  after  his  return  from  Cuba  General 
Wood  was  entrusted  by  President  Roosevelt 
with  the  difficult  task  of  pacifying  and  intro- 


The  Builder  of  Republics        69 

ducing  civil  government  in  the  Moro  Province 
of  the  Philippine  Islands — comprising  the 
greater  part  of  the  southern  island  of  Min 
danao  and  the  islands  of  the  Sulu  group — a 
province  inhabited  throughout  by  slave-hold 
ing  Mohammedans  and  governed  by  Moro 
Sultans,  Panglimas,  Datus,  etc.  The  Span 
iards  when  in  control  of  the  islands  had  been 
unable  to  subdue  this  province  and  had  left 
there  a  state  of  lawlessness  and  disorder  which 
bordered  on  chaos.  The  natives  belonged  to 
twenty  different  tribes  scattered  throughout 
a  vast  tropical  wilderness  devoid  of  roads  and 
penetrated  only  for  short  distances  from  the 
coast.  In  explanation  of  our  lack  of  success 
in  pacifying  the  island  the  excuse  had  been 
advanced  that  the  time  was  not  yet  ripe.  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  the  country  was  waiting  for 
the  right  man. 

The  manner  of  determining  Wood's  ap 
pointment  to  this  difficult  post  is  not  without 
interest.  President  Roosevelt  had  been  fenc 
ing  with  Wood  in  the  White  House  library, 
and  during  a  brief  rest  he  remarked,  "I  have 
been  wondering  whom  I  could  send  to  the 


7°  Leonard  Wood 

Philippines.  There  is  some  rough  and  im 
portant  work  to  be  done  out  there."  "Why 
not  send  me?"  asked  Wood.  "Bully,"  re 
sponded  the  strenuous  President.  "Go  over 
and  see  Root  about  it  to-night." 

Not  only  was  it  characteristic  of  Wood  to 
volunteer  for  arduous  and  difficult  service,  but 
it  was  equally  like  him  to  study  the  subject 
in  advance  from  every  possible  angle.  On  his 
way  out  to  the  islands  he  paid  a  visit  to  Earl 
Cromer,  the  man  who  had  made  modern 
Egypt,  and  not  only  gave  personal  examina 
tion  while  en  route  to  the  methods  employed 
in  India,  Ceylon,  Java,  the  Straits  Settle 
ments,  and  in  every  native  colony  where 
colonial  problems  had  been  solved ;  but  he  also 
collected  a  large  library  of  colonial  literature 
from  which  also  he  extracted  the  lessons  taught 
by  experience. 

It  was  only  natural  that  an  officer  in  the 
United  States  Army  who  was  not  a  graduate 
of  the  Military  Academy,  who  had  been  on 
intimate  terms  of  association  with  three 
Presidents  in  succession,  and  who  had  made  so 
sensational  a  rise,  should  be  looked  upon  with 


The  Builder  of  Republics         71 

suspicion  and  envy  by  many  officers  of  the 
army  and  particularly  by  those  who  had  been 
longer  in  the  service.  To  a  large  extent  these 
feelings  disappeared  when  Wood  was  found 
to  outmarch,  outfight,  and  out-endure  the 
hardest  veteran  in  his  command. 

Satisfied  that  he  had  absorbed  what  it  was 
possible  for  him  to  learn  from  books  dealing 
with  the  colonial  government  of  backward 
peoples,  Wood  determined  to  continue  the 
study  upon  the  ground  and  said  to  his  staff, 
"We  have  got  to  learn  this  country  and  the 
people  from  personal  acquaintance  and  obser 
vation."  He  at  once  left  Manila  and  sailed 
for  Zamboanga  in  Mindanao,  where  after  un 
packing  his  horse  equipment  only,  he  plunged 
into  the  jungle  and  disappeared  for  a  month. 

On  this,  his  first  tour  of  the  islands,  the 
General  met  every  native  chief  of  importance, 
inspected  all  military  posts  and  stations,  and 
for  a  talk  with  the  Governor  there  he  paid  a 
flying  trip  to  the  neighboring  island  of  Borneo, 
where  conditions  were  in  some  respects  similar. 
This  completed,  he  was  ready  to  lay  his  plans 
for  the  future  government  of  the  island. 


72  Leonard  Wood 

He  met  the  Moros  half  way  by  incorporating 
into  the  government  plan  some  of  the  old 
tribal  customs  which  were  not  particularly 
harmful,  but  slavery  and  slave-dealing  he 
determined  to  abolish.  This  decision  brought 
on  war  with  the  great  Datu  Ali  and  other 
chiefs,  who  fortified  themselves  and  defied  the 
new  government  to  release  the  slaves.  The 
campaign  that  drove  Ali  out  of  his  fort  was 
the  last  of  a  series  of  expeditions  against  the 
Sulu  Moros,  and  was  led  by  the  General  him 
self,  and  the  troops  followed  the  rebel  until 
he  was  slain  and  his  followers  had  surrendered 
their  guns. 

One  of  the  insurrections  occurred  among 
the  fanatical  and  hitherto  unconquered  Tara- 
cas  of  Lake  Lanao.  The  expedition  against 
these  robber  natives  which  broke  their  power 
ended-  in  a  battle  in  the  crater  of  the  volcano 
Dajo.  General  Wood  went  on  foot  with  the 
soldiers  over  mountains  and  through  tropical 
jungles  faring  exactly  as  they  did.  He  accom 
panied  the  assaulting  column,  though  leaving 
to  the  commanding  officer  both  the  direction 
of  and  full  credit  for  the  victory.  In  this 


The  Builder  of  Republics       73 

assault  the  troops  had  to  climb  a  volcano  2100 
feet  in  height,  having  slopes  of  sliding  ma 
terials  and  with  the  last  500  feet  inclined  at 
an  angle  of  fifty  degrees.  The  slopes  were 
timbered  and  crossed  by  lava  ridges  and  the 
artillery  had  to  be  raised  300  feet  by  block  and 
tackle.  The  fanatical  robber  Moros  refused 
to  surrender  when  cornered,  and  in  the  battle 
which  resulted  about  six  hundred  were  killed, 
including  the  women,  who  wore  trousers, 
carried  weapons,  and  charged  with  the  men  in 
the  final  hand-to-hand  melee.  These  natives 
sought  death  in  battle  against  Christians  to 
gain  their  entry  into  Paradise,  and  native  boys 
were  used  as  shields  for  protection. 

Sensational  reports,  which  had  emanated, 
not  from  the  island  of  Sulu  but  from  Manila, 
and  which  charged  the  punitive  expedition 
with  inhumanity,  brought  an  inquiry  from 
Congress,  but  one  which  resulted  in  complete 
exoneration  and  proved  that  the  General  had 
exercised  unusual  patience  with  a  view  to 
avoid  bloodshed  if  it  were  possible.  It  was 
entirely  characteristic  of  General  Wood  that 
when  he  learned  of  the  charges  preferred  he  at 


74  Leonard  Wood 

once  cabled  to  the  Department,  "I  assume 
entire  responsibility  for  action  of  the  troops 
in  every  particular."  As  the  General  once 
said,  "My  loyalty  runs  first  to  the  man  under 
me  who  is  least  able  to  defend  himself." 

Major  Hugh  L.  Scott,  who  afterwards 
became  General  and  Chief  of  Staff,  had  re 
cently  returned  from  the  island  and  was 
familiar  with  the  conditions  there.  He  testi 
fied  before  the  Congressional  committee: 

"General  Wood,  with  the  troops,  spent 
the  greater  part  of  the  day  far  from  water 
under  a  tropical  sun,  waiting  with  the  utmost 
patience  on  the  dilatory  tactics  of  the  sav 
ages  in  order  to  accomplish  the  subjugation 
of  this  band  without  bloodshed.  .  .  . 

'The  policy  of  General  Wood  in  that 
archipelago  has  always  been  to  bring  about 
peace  and  order  as  gently  and  with  as  little 
loss  of  life  as  possible.  .  .  . 

"It  is  not  conceivable  that  this  policy  of 
humanity,  carried  out  in  the  past  two  years 
and  a  half,  should  now  have  been  changed, 
as  General  Wood  was  there  in  person  and 


The  Builder  of  Republics        75 

no  one  would  take  more  trouble  to  avoid 
unnecessary  bloodshed  than  he." 

Of  the  mountain  on  which  the  battle  oc 
curred  he  said : 

"It  is  very  steep  and  difficult  to  climb 
under  most  favorable  circumstances,  and  to 
climb  it  successfully  under  fire  is  undoubt 
edly  a  most  gallant  feat  of  arms,  and  unless 
great  skill  had  been  used  many  more  lives 
would  have  been  lost  among  the  troops." 

An  army  officer  returning  from  service  in 
the  Philippines  made  the  following  statement 
which  has  been  put  on  record  and  is  here 
printed  to  indicate  how  the  feeling  in  the 
army  toward  General  Wood  had  been  changed 
through  close  association  with  him: 

"When  Wood  first  came  out  in  1903,  the 
army  in  the  Philippines  didn't  know  him. 
There  were  plenty  of  officers  who  reviled 
him  as  a  favorite  of  the  White  House,  and 
'cussed  him  out'  for  it.  The  worst  were 


76  Leonard  Wood 

the  old  fellows  whom  he  had  jumped,  and 
the  youngsters  took  their  cue  from  them. 
1  He  was  a  doctor,  he  wasn't  a  soldier/  they 
said.  But  that  didn't  last  long  after  Wood 
started  in  down  in  Mindanao.  Pretty  soon 
that  part  of  the  army  began  to  realize  that 
he  wras  a  hustler;  that  he  knew  a  good  deal 
about  the  soldier's  game;  that  he  did  things 
and  did  them  right;  that,  when  he  sent 
troops  into  the  field,  he  went  along  with 
them;  that,  when  they  had  to  eat  hard 
tack  and  bacon,  he  did  it  too;  that,  when 
there  were  swamps  to  plod  through,  he  was 
right  along  with  them;  that,  when  reveille 
sounded  before  daybreak,  he  was  usually  up 
and  dressed  before  us;  that,  when  a  man 
was  down  and  out,  and  he  happened  to  be 
near,  he'd  get  off  his  horse  and  see  what  the 
matter  was,  and  fix  the  fellow  up,  if  he 
could;  that  he  had  a  pleasant  word  for  all 
hands,  from  the  Colonel  down  to  the  team 
ster  or  packer;  that  when  he  gave  an  order 
it  was  a  sensible  one,  and  that  he  didn't 
change  it  after  it  went  out ;  and  that  he  re 
membered  a  man  who  did  a  good  piece  of 


The  Builder  of  Republics        77 

work,  and  showed  his  appreciation  at  every 
chance. 

"Well,  the  youngsters  began  to  swear  by 
Wood,  and  the  old  chaps  followed,  so  that 
from  'cussing  him  out'  they  began  to 
respect  him  and  then  to  admire  and  love 
him.  That's  the  word — love.  It's  the 
easiest  thing  in  the  world  to  pick  a  fight 
out  there  now  by  saying  something  against 
Wood.  It  is  always  the  same  when  men 
come  in  contact  with  him.  I  don't  honestly 
believe  there  is  a  man  in  the  department 
now  who  wouldn't  go  to  hell  and  back  for 
Leonard  Wood.  He  draws  men  to  him, 
they  feel  that  he  is  a  big  man.  Take  the 
older  officers,  the  chaps  who  were  soldiering 
when  he  was  a  'kid.'  They  all  feel  that, 
while  they  know  their  business,  he  knows 
it  a  lot  better  than  they  do,  and  that  he 
knows  it  by  instinct,  backed  up  by  learn- 
ing." 

When  General  Wood  returned  to  the  United 
States,  he  left  Mindanao  the  best  governed 
province  in  the  Philippines.  The  Moros  had 


78  Leonard  Wood 

been  pacified  and  civil  government  set  up  with 
success.  His  work  in  the  islands  has  been 
often  compared  to  that  of  Kitchener,  and  it 
has  been  pointed  out  that  if  what  Wood  did 
in  the  Philippines  had  been  accomplished  in  a 
British  colony  he  would  have  been  rewarded 
as  Kitchener  was.  Robert  Hammond  Murray 
reports  an  English  colonial  official  to  have 
volunteered  his  belief  that  Wood  would  have 
gone  even  farther  than  Kitchener  with  equal 
opportunity,  for  the  reason  that  he  added  to 
the  British  General's  soldierly  qualities  and 
genius  for  administration  a  remarkable  tact 
and  statesmanship. 

General  Wood  was  Governor  of  Moro  Prov 
ince  from  July,  1903,  to  April,  1906,  when 
he  was  advanced  to  the  command  of  the 
Military  Department  of  the  Philippines  with 
ten  thousand  men  under  his  command,  a  posi 
tion  which  he  held  until  1908. 

In  recognition  of  his  work  in  colonial 
organization  and  administration  in  Cuba  and 
the  Philippines,  the  French  Legion  of  Honor 
conferred  upon  him  the  next  to  the  highest 
of  its  five  orders,  that  of  Grand  Officer. 


The  Builder  of  Republics        79 

This  is  a  tribute  seldom  accorded  to  any 
one  not  a  Frenchman,  and  the  honor  has 
even  more  rarely  been  awarded  in  time  of 
peace. 


CHAPTER  III 
ROOSEVELT'S  ESTIMATE  OF  WOOD 


Roosevelt  and  Wood  planning  national  defence — Wood  advanced 
mainly  by  Presidents  McKinley  and  Taft — Wood  the  soldier 
— The  model  military  administrator — Wood's  hardihood  and 
endurance — His  love  of  adventure — The  Geronimo  experi 
ence — Wood  shares  all  hardships  of  his  men — His  boundless 
energy — Even  justice  to  all — His  reward  the  opportunity  for 
service — His  sensational  rise  due  to  his  owe  high  qualities. 


IT  was  in  1896  that  Wood  first  met  Roose 
velt,  who  was  then  the  Assistant  Secretary  of 
the  Navy,  and  out  of  this  grew  an  attachment 
between  two  strong  characters,  which  deep 
ened  with  the  years.  Wood  was  of  all  men 
the  one  that  Roosevelt  admired  and  loved. 
Almost  from  their  first  meeting  they  began 
planning  to  prepare  their  country  for  the 
struggle  with  Spain,  which  was  already  loom 
ing  up  upon  the  horizon.  Their  later  and  far 
more  difficult  struggle  for  adequate  national 

preparedness  against  the  apathy  and  open 

so 


Roosevelt's  Estimate  of  Wood   81 

hostility  of  the  Administration  bound  them 
together  as  with  bonds  of  steel. 

There  exists  a  widespread  but  quite  erro 
neous  belief  that  Wood  owes  his  rapid  rise 
in  the  army — a  rise  without  a  parallel  in  our 
history — to  appointments  made  by  Roosevelt 
when  Chief  Executive  of  the  nation.  As  a 
matter  of  fact  Wood's  appointment  as  Colonel 
and  his  advancements  successively  to  Briga 
dier  General  and  Major  General  of  Volun 
teers,  to  Brigadier  General  in  the  Regular 
Army,  as  well  as  to  Governor  General  of  Cuba, 
were  all  made  by  President  McKinley  as  war 
time  appointments  and  each  was  dictated 
by  an  imperative  necessity.  Wood's  appoint 
ment  as  Chief  of  Staff  of  the  Army  was  made 
by  President  Taft.  The  only  advance  in 
Wood's  military  career  that  was  made  by 
President  Roosevelt  was  when  he  was  pro 
moted  from  Brigadier  General  to  Major  Gen 
eral  in  the  Regular  Army,  and  this  occurred 
at  a  time  when  Wood  headed  the  list  of 
brigadiers  so  that  a  failure  of  the  President 
to  make  the  nomination  would  have  been 
tantamount  to  an  expression  of  his  disap- 


82  Leonard  Wood 

proval.  As  Elihu  Root  has  expressed  it, 
"  President  Roosevelt  would  be  called  upon  to 
put  him  out  of  that  rank  and  to  dissent  from 
the  judgment  of  President  McKinley  if  he 
had  failed  to  nominate  him." 

Because  of  his  known  intimacy  with  Wood, 
Roosevelt  seemed  to  realize  that  any  advance 
ment  of  the  general  which  came  from  him 
would  be  charged  by  hostile  critics  to  favor 
itism.  Roosevelt's  estimates  of  Wood  as  civil 
administrator  and  man,  as  well  as  soldier, 
were  therefore  prepared  with  much  careful  dis 
crimination.  In  articles  which  he  published 
in  1899,  1902,  and  1910,  there  is  contained 
a  quite  remarkable  expression  of  judgment 
on  the  part  of  one  great  American  who  knew 
another  more  intimately  than  did  anyone 
else.  Of  Wood  as  a  soldier  he  knew  from 
personal  association  in  the  command  of  the 
Rough  Riders,  and  in  his  biography  he  says : 

"It  [the  regiment]  was  raised,  armed, 
equipped,  drilled,  sent  on  trains  to  Tampa, 
embarked,  disembarked,  and  put  through 
two  victorious  offensive — not  defensive — 


Roosevelt's  Estimate  of  Wood   83 

fights  in  which  a  third  of  the  officers  and 
one  fifth  of  the  men  were  killed  or  wounded, 
all  within  sixty  days.  It  is  a  good  record, 
and  it  speaks  well  for  the  men  of  the  regi 
ment;  and  it  speaks  well  for  Wood.  .  .  . 
"Wood  was  an  exceptional  commander, 
of  great  power,  with  a  remarkable  gift  for 
organization.  Wood  won  his  Brigadier 
Generalship  by  the  capital  way  in  which  he 
handled  his  brigade  in  the  fight  and  in  the 
following  siege.  He  was  put  in  command  of 
the  captured  city  [Santiago]." 

To  the  Outlook  of  January  7,  1899,  Roose 
velt  contributed  a  special  article  entitled 
"General  Leonard  Wood,  a  Model  American 
Military  Administrator, ' f  and  from  this  article 
the  following  paragraphs  have  been  taken : 

"What  I  am  about  to  write  concerning 
the  great  service  rendered  not  only  to  Cuba, 
but  to  America,  by  Brigadier  General  Leon 
ard  Wood,  now  Military  Governor  of  Santi 
ago,  is  written  very  much  less  as  a  tribute 
to  him  than  for  the  sake  of  pointing  out  what 


84  Leonard  Wood 

an  object-lesson  he  has  given  the  people 
of  the  United  States  in  the  matter  of  ad 
ministering  those  tropic  lands  in  which  we 
have  grown  to  have  so  great  an  interest.  .  .  . 

"I  think  most  Americans  realize  that 
facts  must  be  faced,  and  that  for  the  present, 
and  in  the  immediate  future,  we  shall  have, 
whether  we  wish  it  or  not,  to  provide  a 
working  government,  not  only  for  Hawaii 
and  Porto  Rico,  but  for  Cuba  and  the 
Philippines.  .  .  . 

"What  is  really  essential  is  to  have  first- 
class  men  chosen  to  administer  these  prov 
inces,  and  then  to  give  these  men  the 
widest  possible  latitude  as  to  means  and 
methods  for  solving  the  exceedingly  difficult 
problems  set  before  them.  Most  fortu 
nately,  we  have  in  General  Wood  the  exact 
type  of  man  whom  we  need;  and  we  have  in 
his  work  for  the  past  four  months  an  exact 
illustration  of  how  the  work  should  be  done. 

"The  great  importance  of  the  personal 
element  in  this  work  makes  it  necessary  for 
me  to  dwell  upon  General  Wood's  qualifi 
cations  as  I  should  not  otherwise  do.  The 


Roosevelt's  Estimate  of  Wood   85 

successful  administrator  of  a  tropic  colony  / 
must  ordinarily  be  a  man  of  boundless 
energy  and  endurance;  and  there  were  prob 
ably  very  few  men  in  the  army  at  Santiago, 
whether  among  the  officers  or  in  the  ranks, 
who  could  match  General  Wood  in  either 
respect.  No  soldier  could  outwalk  him, 
could  live  with  more  indifference  on  hard 
and  scanty  fare,  could  endure  hardship 
better,  or  do  better  without  sleep ;  no  officer 
ever  showed  more  ceaseless  energy  in  pro 
viding  for  his  soldiers,  in  reconnoitering,  in 
overseeing  personally  all  the  countless  de 
tails  of  life  in  camp,  in  patrolling  the 
trenches  at  night,  in  seeing  by  personal 
inspection  that  the  outposts  were  doing 
their  duty,  in  attending  personally  to  all 
the  thousand  and  one  things  to  which  a 
commander  should  attend,  and  to  which 
only  those  commanders  of  marked  and  ex 
ceptional  mental  and  bodily  vigor  are  able 
to  attend. 

" General  Wood  was  a  Cape  Cod  boy;  and 
to  this  day  there  are  few  amusements  for 
which  he  cares  more  than  himself  to  sail  a 


86  Leonard  Wood 

small  boat  off  the  New  England  coast, 
especially  in  rough  weather.  He  went 
through  the  Harvard  Medical  School  in 
1881-82,  and  began  to  practice  in  Boston; 
but  his  was  one  of  those  natures  which, 
especially  when  young,  frets  for  adventure 
and  for  those  hard  and  dangerous  kinds  of 
work  where  peril  blocks  the  path  to  a 
greater  reward  than  is  offered  by  more 
peaceful  occupations.  A  year  after  leaving 
college  he  joined  the  army  as  a  contract  sur 
geon,  and  almost  immediately  began  his 
service  under  General  Miles  in  the  South 
western  Territories.  These  were  then 
harried  by  the  terrible  Apaches;  and  the 
army  was  entering  on  the  final  campaigns 
for  the  overthrow  of  Geronimo  and  his 
fellow  renegades.  No  one  who  has  not 
lived  in  the  West  can  appreciate  the  in 
credible,  the  extraordinary  fatigue  and 
hardship  attendant  upon  these  campaigns. 
There  was  not  much  fighting,  but  what 
there  was,  was  of  an  exceedingly  dangerous 
type;  and  the  severity  of  the  marches 
through  the  waterless  mountains  of  Arizona, 


Roosevelt's  Estimate  of  Wood    87 

New  Mexico,  and  the  northern  regions  of 
Old  Mexico  (whither  the  Apache  bands 
finally  retreated)  were  such  that  only  men 
of  iron  could  stand  them.  But  the  young 
contract  doctor,  tall,  broad-chested,  with 
his  light-yellow  hair  and  blue  eyes,  soon 
showed  the  stuff  of  which  he  was  made. 
Hardly  any  of  the  whites,  whether  soldiers 
or  frontiersmen,  could  last  with  him;  and 
the  friendly  Indian  trailers  themselves  could 
not  wear  him  down.  In  such  campaigns 
it  soon  becomes  essential  to  push  forward 
the  one  actually  fitted  for  command,  what 
ever  his  accidental  position  may  be;  and 
Wood,  although  only  a  contract  surgeon, 
finished  his  career  against  the  Apaches  by 
serving  as  commanding  officer  of  certain  of 
the  detachments  sent  out  to  perform  pecu 
liarly  arduous  and  dangerous  duty;  and  he 
did  his  work  so  well  and  showed  such  con 
spicuous  gallantry  that  he  won  that  most 
coveted  of  military  distinctions,  the  medal 
of  honor.  On  expeditions  of  this  kind, 
where  the  work  is  so  exhausting  as  to  call 
for  the  last  ounce  of  reserve  strength  and 


8  Leonard  Wood 

courage  in  the  men,  only  a  very  peculiar 
and  high  type  of  officer  can  succeed.  Wood, 
however,  never  called  upon  his  men  to  do 
anything  that  he  himself  did  not  do.  They 
ran  no  risk  that  he  did  not  run ;  they  endured 
no  hardship  which  he  did  not  endure;  in 
tolerable  fatigue,  intolerable  thirst,  never- 
satisfied  hunger,  and  the  strain  of  unending 
watchfulness  against  the  most  cruel  and 
dangerous  of  foes — through  all  this  Wood 
led  his  men  until  the  final  hour  of  signal 
success.  When  he  ended  the  campaigns, 
he  had  won  the  high  regard  of  his  superior 
officers,  not  merely  for  courage  and  en 
durance,  but  for  judgment  and  entire  trust 
worthiness.  A  young  man  who  is  high  of 
heart,  clean  of  life,  incapable  of  a  mean  or 
ungenerous  action,  and  bursting  with  the 
desire  to  honorably  distinguish  himself, 
needs  only  the  opportunity  in  order  to  do 
good  work  for  his  country. 

4 'This  opportunity  came  to  Wood  with 
the  outbreak  of  the  Spanish  War.  I  had 
seen  much  of  him  during  the  preceding  year. 
Being  myself  fond  of  outdoor  exercise,  I  had 


Roosevelt's  Estimate  of  Wood   89 

found  a  congenial  companion  in  a  man  who 
had  always  done  his  serious  duties  with 
the  utmost  conscientiousness,  but  who  had 
found  time  to  keep  himself,  even  at  thirty- 
seven,  a  first-class  football  player.  We  had 
the  same  ideals  and  the  same  wray  of  look 
ing  at  life;  we  were  fond  of  the  same  sports; 
and,  last,  but  not  least,  being  men  with 
families,  we  liked,  where  possible,  to  enjoy 
these  sports  in  company  with  our  small 
children.  We  therefore  saw  very  much  of 
each  other ;  and  we  had  made  our  plans  long 
in  advance  as  to  what  we  should  do  if  war 
with  Spain  broke  out;  accordingly,  he  went 
as  Colonel,  and  I  was  Lieutenant  Colonel, 
of  the  Rough  Riders.  How  well  he  com 
manded  his  regiment  is  fresh  in  the  minds 
of  every  one.  Because  of  his  success  he  was 
made  Brigadier  General,  and  at  the  battle 
of  San  Juan  he  commanded  one  of  the  two 
brigades  which  made  up  General  Joe 
Wheeler's  Cavalry  Division.  When  Santi 
ago  surrendered,  he  was  soon  put  in  charge, 
first  of  the  city  and  then  of  the  city  and 
province. 


9°  Leonard  Wood 

"Since  then  he  has  worked  wonders. 
Both  his  medical  and  his  mjilitary  training 
stood  him  in  good  steacJXi  was  frequently 
in  Santiago  after  ithe  surrender,  and  I  never 
saw  Wood  when  he  was  not  engaged  on 
some  one  of  his  multitudinous  duties.  He 
was  personally  inspecting  the  hospitals;  he 
was  personally  superintending  the  cleaning 
of  the  streets ;  he  was  personally  hearing  the 
most  important  of  the  countless  complaints 
made  by  Cubans  against  Spaniards,  Span 
iards  against  Cubans,  and  by  both  against 
Americans;  he  was  personally  engaged  in 
working  out  a  better  system  of  sewerage  or 
in  striving  to  secure  the  return  of  the  land- 
tillers  to  the  soil.  I  do  not  mean  that  he 
ever  allowed  himself  to  be  swamped  by 
mere  details;  he  is  much  too  good  an  ex 
ecutive  officer  not  to  delegate  to  others 
whatever  can  safely  be  delegated;  but  the 
extraordinary  energy  of  the  man  himself 
is  such  that  he  can  in  person  oversee  and 
direct  much  more  than  is  possible  with  the 
ordinary  man. 

"To  General  Wood  has  fallen  the  duty  of 


Roosevelt's  Estimate  of  Wood  91 

preserving  order,  of  seeing  that  the  best 
Cubans  begin]  to  administer  the  govern 
ment,  of  protecting  the  lives  and  properties 
of  the  Spaniards  from  the  vengeance  of  their 
foes,  and  of  securing  the  best  hygienic  con 
ditions  possible  in  the  city;  of  opening  the 
schools,  and  of  endeavoring  to  re-establish 
agriculture  and  commerce  in  a  ruined  and 
desolate  land.^-^ 

"The  sanitary  state  of  the  city  of  San 
tiago  was  frightful  beyond  belief.  The 
Cuban  army  consisted  of  undisciplined,  un 
paid  men  on  the  verge  of  becoming  mere 
bandits.  The  Cuban  chiefs  were  not  only 
jealous  of  one  another,  but,  very  naturally, 
bitterly  hostile  to  the  Spaniards  who  re 
mained  in  the  land.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  men  of  property,  not  only  among  the 
Spaniards,  but  even  among  the  Cubans, 
greatly  feared  the  revolutionary  army. 
All  conditions  were  ripe  for  a  period  of  utter 
anarchy,  and  under  a  weak,  a  foolish,  or  a 
violent  man  this  anarchy  would  certainly 
have  come.  General  Wood,  by  his  energy, 
his  firmness,  his  common  sense,  and  his 


92  Leonard  Wood 

moderation,  has  succeeded  in  working  as 
great  an  improvement  as  was  possible 
in  so  short  a  time.  By  degrees  he  has 
substituted  the  best  Cubans  he  can  find 
in  the  places  both  of  the  old  Spanish  offi 
cials  and  of  the  Americans  who  were  put 
in  temporary  control.  He  permits  not 
the  slightest  violence  either  on  the  part 
of  the  American  soldiers  or  of  the  inhab 
itants;  he  does  absolute,  even  justice  to 
all.  He  shows  that  he  thinks  of  him 
self  only  in  so  far  as  he  desires  to  win 
an  honorable  reputation  for  doing  his 
work — and  even  this  desire  for  an  honor 
able  reputation,  it  must  be  remembered, 
is  absolutely  secondary  in  his  mind  to 
the  desire  that  the  work  itself  should  be 
thoroughly  done,  let  the  credit  go  where 
it  will." 

Three  years  later,  writing  in  the  Har 
vard  Graduates  Magazine,  Roosevelt  supple 
mented  the  above  account  by  a  brief  sum 
mary  of  which  the  following  paragraph  is  a 
part: 


Roosevelt's  Estimate  of  Wood  93 

XLeonard   Wood   four   years   ago   went 


to  Cuba,  has  served  there  ever  since, 
has  rendered  services  to  that  country  of 
the  kind  which  if  performed  three  thousand 
years  ago  would  have  made  him  a  hero 
mixed  up  with  the  sun  god  in  various  ways; 
a  man  who  devoted  his  full  life  through  those 
four  years,  who  thought  of  nothing  else,  did 
nothing  else,  save  to  try  to  bring  up  the 
standard  of  political  and  social  life  in  that 
island,  to  clean  it  physically  and  morally, 
to  make  justice  even  and  fair  in  it,  to  found 
a  school  system  which  should  be  akin  to  our 
own,  to  teach  the  people  after  four  centu 
ries  of  misrule  that  there  were  such  things 
as  governmental  righteousness  and  honesty 
and  fair  play  for  all  men  on  their  merits 
as  men.  He  did  all  that.  He  is  a  man  of 
slender  means.  He  did  it  on  his  pay  as  an 
army  officer,  and  as  Governor  of  the  island. 
Sixty  millions  of  dollars  passed  through  his 
hands,  and  he  came  out  having  been  obliged 
to  draw  on  his  slender  capital  in  order  that 
he  might  come  out  even  when  he  left  the 
island." 


94  Leonard  Wood 

In  his  book,   The  Rough  Riders,  Roosevelt 
wrote : 

"General  Leonard  Wood  combines  in  a 
very  high  degree  the  qualities  of  entire 
manliness  with  entire  uprightness  and  clean 
liness  of  character.  He  is  a  man  of  high 
ideals  who  scorns  everything  mean  and  base 
and  who  possesses  those  robust  and  hardy 
qualities  of  body  and  mind  for  the  lack  of 
which  no  merely  negative  virtue  can  atone. 
He  is  by  nature  a  soldier  of  the  highest 
type." 

Later,    in    Everybody's    Magazine,    the    ex- 
President  added: 

"What  I  said  of  Leonard  Wood  in  The 
Rough  Riders  I  now  say  with  greater  em 
phasis  than  ever.  He  has  shown  himself 
one  of  the  most  useful  and  patriotic  of 
American  public  servants,  and  has  made 
all  good  Americans  his  debtors  by  what 
he  has  done/' 


Roosevelt's  Estimate  of  Wood   95 

In  July  of  the  year  1910,  when  Wood's  work 
in  Santiago  had  been  followed  by  that  remark 
able  achievement  in  the  capacity  of  Governor 
General  of  the  island,  and  then  by  the  pacifi 
cation  of  the  Moros  in  the  Philippines  and  the 
setting  tip  of  civil  government  there,  Roose 
velt  again  took  up  his  pen  in  order  to  sum 
marize  these  later  achievements.  In  the 
Outlook  he  wrote  in  part: 

"Nearly  twelve  years  ago,  when  Leonard 
Wood  was  acting  as  Governor  of  Santiago, 
I  wrote  in  the  Outlook  about  what  he  had 
already  achieved,  and  what  he  could  be 
trusted  to  achieve.  During  the  intervening 
twelve  years  he  has  played  a  very  con 
spicuous  part  among  the  men  who  have 
rendered  signal  service  to  the  country  by 
the  way  in  which  they  have  enabled  it  to 
grapple  with  the  duties  and  responsibilities 
incurred  by  the  Spanish  War.  .  .  . 

1 '  The  share  of  the  army  in  the  honor  roll 
is  very  large.  The  importance  of  work  like 
that  of  General  Bell  in  the  Philippines,  of 
General  Barry  in  Cuba,  can  hardly  be  over- 


96  Leonard  Wood 

estimated ;  but  as  a  whole,  of  all  the  work  of 
the  army  officers,  the  greatest  in  amount,  and 
the  greatest  in  variety  of  achievement,  must 
be  credited  to  General  Wood.  And,  more 
over,  he  has  at  times  combined  with  singu 
lar  success  the  functions  of  civil  adminis 
trator  and  military  commandant.  The  part 
played  by  the  United  States  in  Cuba  has 
been  one  of  the  most  honorable  ever  played 
by  any  nation  in  dealing  with  a  weaker 
Power,  one  of  the  most  satisfactory  in  all 
respects;  and  to  General  Wood  more  than 
to  any  other  man  is  due  the  credit  of  start 
ing  this  work  and  conducting  it  to  a  success 
ful  conclusion  during  the  earliest  and  most 
difficult  years.  Like  almost  all  of  the  men 
mentioned,  as  well  as  their  colleagues,  Gen 
eral  Wood  of  course  incurred  the  violent 
hatred  of  many  dishonest  schemers  and 
unscrupulous  adventurers,  and  of  a  few 
more  or  less  well-meaning  persons  who  were 
misled  by  these  schemers  and  adventurers; 
but  it  is  astounding  to  any  one  acquainted 
with  the  facts  to  realize,  not  merely  what 
he  accomplished,  but  how  he  succeeded  in 


Roosevelt's  Estimate  of  Wood   97 

gaining  the  good  will  of  the  enormous 
majority  of  the  men  whose  good  will  could 
be  won  only  in  honorable  fashion.  Span 
iards  and  Cubans,  Christian  Filipinos  and 
Moros,  Catholic  ecclesiastics  and  Protestant 
missionaries — in  each  case  the  great  major 
ity  of  those  whose  opinion  was  best  worth 
having — grew  to  regard  General  Wood  as 
their  special  champion  and  ablest  friend,  as 
the  man  who  more  than  any  other  under 
stood  and  sympathized  with  their  peculiar 
needs  and  was  anxious  and  able  to  render 
them  the  help  they  most  needed.  In  Cuba 
he  acted  practically  as  both  civil  and  mili 
tary  head ;  and  after  he  had  been  some  time 
in  the  Philippines,  very  earnest  pressure 
was  brought  to  bear  by  many  of  the  best 
people  in  the  islands  to  have  a  similar  posi 
tion  there  created  for  him,  so  that  he  could 
repeat  what  he  had  done  in  Cuba.  It  was 
neither  necessary  nor  desirable  that  this 
position  should  be  created;  but  the  widely 
expressed  desire  that  it  should  be  created 
was  significant  of  the  faith  in  the  man. 
4 'His  administration  was  as  signally  sue- 


98  Leonard  Wood 

cessful  in  the  Moro  country  as  in  Cuba.  In 
each  case  alike  it  brought  in  its  train  peace, 
an  increase  in  material  prosperity,  and  a 
rigid  adherence  to  honesty  as  the  only 
policy  tolerated  among  officials.  His  oppor 
tunity  for  military  service  has  not  been 
great,  either  in  the  Philippines  or  while  he 
was  the  Governor  of  Cuba.  Still,  on  sev 
eral  occasions  he  was  obliged  to  carry  on 
operations  against  hostile  tribes  of  Moros, 
and  in  each  case  he  did  his  work  with  skill, 
energy,  and  efficiency ;  and,  once  it  was  done, 
he  showed  as  much  humanity  in  dealing 
with  the  vanquished  as  he  had  shown  ca 
pacity  to  vanquish  them.  In  our  country 
there  are  some  kinds  of  successes  which 
receive  an  altogether  disproportionate  finan 
cial  reward;  but  in  no  other  country  is  the 
financial  reward  so  small  for  the  kind  of 
service  done  by  Leonard  Wood  and  by  the 
other  men  whose  names  I  have  given  above. 
General  Wood  is  an  army  officer  with  noth 
ing  but  an  army  officer's  pay,  and  we  accept 
it  as  a  matter  of  course  that  he  should  have 
received  practically  no  pecuniary  reward 


Roosevelt's  Estimate  of  Wood  99 

for  those  services  which  he  rendered  in 
positions  not  such  as  an  army  officer  usually 
occupies.  There  is  not  another  big  country 
in  the  world  where  he  would  not  have  re 
ceived  a  substantial  reward  such  as  here  no 
one  even  thinks  of  his  receiving.  Yet,  after 
all,  the  reward  for  which  he  most  cares  is 
the  opportunity  to  render  service,  and  this 
opportunity  has  been  given  him  once  and 
again.  He  now  stands  as  Chief  of  Staff  of 
the  American  Army,  the  army  in  which  he 
was  serving  in  a  subordinate  position  as 
surgeon  thirteen  years  ago.  His  rise  has 
been  astonishing,  and  it  has  been  due  purely 
to  his  own  striking  qualifications  and  strik 
ing  achievements.  Again  and  again  he  has 
rendered  great  service  to  the  American 
people;  and  he  will  continue  to  render  such 
service  in  the  position  he  now  holds." 


Part  II 


Prophet  and  Organizer  of 
Preparedness 


101 


CHAPTER  IV 

ORGANIZING  THE  AMERICAN  ARMY  FOR  DEFENCE 


General  Wood's  splendid  health  and  vigor — Return  to  the  United 
States  to  command  the  Department  of  the  East — Devotes 
himself  to  preparing  army  for  defence — The  Massachusetts 
manoeuvres  of  1909 — Encourages  rifle  practice  in  schools — 
Sounds  the  warning  to  prepare — Raised  to  the  head  of  the 
army  by  President  Taft — Regroups  the  army  stations  so  as 
to  resist  invasion — Moves  to  abandon  needless  posts — Op 
position  aroused  in  Congress — "Joker"  aimed  at  him  in 
army  bill — Economies  introduced  in  the  army — Advocates 
large  expansion  of  army  at  reduction  of  cost — Attacks  system 
of  bureau  chiefs — The  Texas  troop  concentration  of  1911 — 
Encourages  military  training  in  colleges — The  idea  of  the 
Reserve  Officers'  Corps — Devises  the  Plattsburg  Camps — 
Declares  undeveloped  resources  useless  in  war. 


IT  was  in  1910  that  Leonard  Wood,  his 
remarkable  work  in  the  Moro  Province  con 
cluded,  underwent  a  surgical  operation  upon  his 
skull  to  remedy  a  serious  condition  resulting 
from  the  fracture  due  to  a  blow  years  before. 
This  operation  was  successfully  performed  and 
less  than  a  month  thereafter  he  was  en  route 

to  the  Argentine  as  special  ambassador,  en- 

103 


104  Leonard  Wood 

gaging  daily  in  hard  contests  using  the  medi 
cine  ball  with  Admiral  Stanton  and  his  staff; 
and  General  Wood  has  since  continued  to 
possess  that  perfect  health  and  vigor  and 
that  wonderful  physical  energy  which  spring 
from  muscular  strength  when  combined  with 
an  iron  constitution.  One  of  the  strong  im 
pressions  which  is  carried  away  from  every 
meeting  with  him  is  a  radiation  of  energy  quite 
independent  of  motion  and  suggesting  an 
enormous  reserve  of  physical  power.  This 
impression  is  only  accentuated  by  the  rather 
noticeable  lameness  of  the  left  leg  due  to  a 
vicious  kick  from  a  mettlesome  horse.  The 
General's  limp,  especially  noticeable  when  he 
rises  to  speak  on  the  platform,  entirely  dis 
appears  after  a  little  vigorous  exercise,  and 
few  men  are  able  to  keep  up  with  him  in 
getting  about  on  foot. 

When  he  returned  to  the  United  States  in 
1908,  General  Wood  was  promoted  to  the 
command  of  the  Eastern  Department  of  the 
Army  with  headquarters  at  Governor's  Island. 
This  was  at  the  time  the  most  important  army 
command  outside  the  national  capital.  Here 


neral  and  Mrs.  Wood  at  Governor's  Island 


Organizing  the  Army          105 

for  the  first  time  opportunity  was  found  to 
devote  himself  to  the  problem  of  preparing 
the  national  defence  for  a  war  which  he  knew 
was  certain  to  come  upon  the  country  in  the 
not  distant  future.  From  a  military  point  of 
view  the  country  was  in  a  hopeless  condition 
to  meet  the  attack  of  a  foreign  foe.  When 
with  Earl  Roberts  at  the  German  manoeuvres 
of  1902  General  Wood  had  had  an  opportunity 
to  inspect  the  modern  military  machine  of 
Germany,  and  he  was  under  no  illusion  as  to 
the  meaning  of  this  development  of  a  perfected 
instrument  of  war  by  a  state  notoriously  mili 
taristic  and  ruled  by  an  ambitious  war  lord. 

As  commander  of  the  Department  of  the 
East,  he  had  under  his  observation  more  than 
half  of  the  National  Guard  of  the  country,  a 
body  of  excellent  personnel  but  organized 
under  a  vicious  system  which  was  not  suscept 
ible  of  enforcement  of  rigid  discipline.  More 
over,  there  was  little  opportunity  for  drill  in 
larger  units  than  that  of  the  company,  and 
military  concentration  for  manoeuvres  was 
something  quite  unknown. 

As   a    great    object    lesson    both    for    the 


io6  Leonard  Wood 

National  Guard  itself  and  for  the  people  of 
the  country,  General  Wood  staged  the  Mas 
sachusetts  manoeuvres  of  1909,  in  which 
the  Atlantic  Fleet  of  the  Navy,  the  Tenth 
United  States  Cavalry,  and  the  National 
Guards  of  New  York,  Massachusetts,  New 
Jersey,  and  the  District  of  Columbia  all  took 
part. 

The  war  ships  were  organized  as  two  fleets, 
one  that  of  the  enemy  (red),  and  the  other 
the  American  (blue).  These  rival  fleets,  after 
manoeuvring  off  the  Maine  coast,  met  with 
the  result  that  the  American  squadron  was 
adjudged  by  the  umpires  to  have  been  stra 
tegically  defeated,  so  that  its  remnants  were 
forced  to  take  refuge  in  the  harbors  of  Port 
land  and  Portsmouth.  The  troops  had  been 
divided  into  American  and  enemy  forces  co 
operating  each  with  its  own  fleet .  An  immense 
amount  of  popular  interest  was  excited  in  these 
manoeuvres,  which  continued  for  five  days  and 
revealed  glaring  deficiencies  as  no  other 
method  could  have  done.  Of  the  result 
General  Wood  said  in  a  published  magazine 
article: 


Organizing  the  Army          107 

"It  also  demonstrated  to  all  people  who 
looked  at  the  problem  from  a  military 
standpoint  the  entire  inefficiency  of  our 
available  forces  to  meet  any  sudden,  well- 
organized  attack,  and  the  necessity  of  a 
decided  enlargement  of  our  organized  militia 
and  its  thorough  instruction  and  equipment. 

"The  people  of  our  country  are,  as  a  rule, 
very  ignorant  of  the  preparedness  of  foreign 
nations  and  of  our  own  unpreparedness  to 
meet  effectively  any  aggressive  action.  We 
are  too  often  told  of  our  remarkable  re 
sources  and  too  seldom  made  to  understand 
our  entire  unpreparedness  effectively  and 
promptly  to  employ  them.  .  .  .  Our 
people  sit  in  fancied  security  behind  our 
seacoast  defences,  which  are  excellent  for 
the  purpose  for  which  they  were  designed, 
but  the  general  public  is  unaware  of  the 
general  limitation  of  these  defences.  The 
most  they  can  be  called  upon  or  expected 
to  do  is  to  prevent  the  enemy's  fleet  from 
entering  our  harbors  or  lying  sufficiently 
near  their  entrance  to  bombard  the  cities 
behind  them.  .  .  .  They  make  the  enemy's 


io8  Leonard  Wood 

work  more  difficult.  .  .  .  Most  of  our 
great  cities  once  the  command  of  the  sea 
is  lost  are  open  to  land  attack.  .  .  .  The 
best  way  to  impress  upon  the  people  the 
necessity  for  action  ...  is  to  demonstrate 
the  facility  with  which  an  invading  force 
can  land  and  deliver  successful  attacks 
upon  our  seaboard  cities.  " 

Another  direction  along  which  it  was  sought 
to  arouse  the  people's  interest  in  their  obli 
gation  to  provide  for  national  defence,  was 
through  the  encouragement  of  rifle  practice 
in  the  public  schools.  Writing  in  1910,  Gen 
eral  Wood  declared : 

'The  question  arises  as  to  what  we  can 
do  through  the  public  schools  to  better 
prepare  our  people  for  war,  war  which  will 
be  as  unavoidable  in  the  future  as  in  the 
past,  and  which  will  come  upon  us  much 
more  suddenly  and  with  greater  force  and 
power.  We  can,  through  the  proper  use  of 
the  public  schools,  do  a  great  deal;  we  can 
teach  our  boys  and  young  men  to  shoot 
straight.  .  .  . 


Organizing  the  Army          109 

"  In  case  of  a  war  of  any  consequence  we 
would  be  compelled  to  call  to  the  colors 
from  half  a  million  to  a  million  men.  There 
would  be  no  time  to  instruct  them,  for  the 
oceans,  under  transportation  conditions  of 
to-day,  are  no  longer  barriers  in  military 
operations,  but  rather  rapid  and  convenient 
means  of  communication,  especially  to  the 
nation  having  a  predominant  sea-power, 
and  the  time  to  organize  for  defence  will  be 
very  short.  .  .  . 

"Preparedness  for  war  is  the  strongest 
of  the  influences  for  the  preservation  of 
peace.  .  .  . 

"Much  as  we  all  desire  peace  and  wish 
by  all  honorable  means  to  avoid  war,  war 
will  come,  and  we  owe  it  to  our  country  to 
take  such  steps  as  will  insure  reasonable 
preparedness. 

"We  are,  as  a  people,  too  conscious  of  our 
latent,  but  entirely  undeveloped,  military 
resources,  and  too  much  surfeited  with 
what  has  been  well  called  the  'valor  of 
ignorance/  and  it  is  most  important,  in 
view  of  our  rapidly  extending  sphere  of 


no  Leonard  Wood 

influence,  that  we  give  some  heed  to  the 
attainment  of  a  state  of  preparedness  to 
meet  the  grave  conditions  liable  to  confront 
us  as  a  result  of  our  new  responsibility/* 

A  little  later  he  added: 

"When  war  comes  to  this  country  again 
.  .  .  the  patriotic,  able-bodied  American 
will,  as  in  the  past,  feel  himself  obligated 
the  moment  war  is  declared  to  offer  his 
services  to  the  Government. 

"If  he  has  had  no  previous  military 
training  in  the  army  or  in  the  National 
Guard,  he  is  not  going  to  be  of  much  use; 
in  fact,  of  no  use  in  the  beginning.  He  will 
be  more  of  a  burden  than  a  benefit,  a  handi 
cap  instead  of  a  help,  to  the  force  in  which 
he  is  enrolled. 

"He  will  have  to  be  trained,  instructed, 
taught,  and  the  exigencies  of  the  occasion 
may  be  such  that  he  will  be  rushed  into 
battle  before  he  knows  anything  of  what  a 
soldier  should  know.  .  .  . 

"The   encouragement   of   schoolboys  in 


Organizing  the  Army          1 1 1 

the  use  of  the  rifle  on  official  ranges  and 
under  competent  instruction  is  of  vast 
importance  to  the  nation.  .  .  . 

"Far  from  making  these  boys  disposed  for 
war,  the  instruction  which  they  receive 
...  is  calculated  to  cause  them  to  appre 
ciate,  much  more  than  anyone  unlearned 
in  the  use  of  modern  weapons  could  possibly 
appreciate,  the  horrors  involved  in  war. 

"  Instead  of  opposing  instruction  of  this 
kind,  every  parent  and  all  school  authorities . 
should  encourage  it,  for  the  better  prepared 
our  people  are  in  the  way  of  instruction  in 
the  use  of  the  rifle  and  readiness  to  perform 
their  duty  in  time  of  war,  the  less  likely  we 
are  to  have  wars,  and,  if  we  have  them,  the 
quicker  they  will  be  over  and  the  smaller 
will  be  our  losses.  Nothing  makes  war  so 
costly  as  lack  of  preparedness,  and  nothing 
makes  it  so  probable  as  to  have  this  lack  of 
preparation  apparent  and  generally  known. 
We  should  impress  upon  our  youth  the  fact 
that  they  are  all  under  a  patriotic  obligation 
to  avail  themselves  of  every  opportunity  to 
fit  themselves  to  discharge  the  duty  of  a 


ii2  Leonard  Wood 

soldier  in  time  of  war.  The  nation  in  which 
this  is  lost  sight  of  is  marked  for  disaster, 
or,  at  least,  for  very  great  and  unnecessary 
sacrifices  and  losses  in  case  of  war. " 

When  in  1910  General  Wood  was  placed  at 
the  head  of  the  army  as  the  Chief  of  Staff,  his 
opportunities  for  fitting  the  American  mili 
tary  forces  for  war  were  greatly  enlarged,  and 
he  thereupon  immediately  took  up  plans  for  a 
thorough  regrouping  of  the  stations  of  the 
army  with  definite  reference  to  the  possibili 
ties  of  defence  against  invasion  of  the  country. 

During  the  period  of  the  development  of 
the  Great  West,  it  had  been  necessary  to  pro 
tect  frontier  districts  from  possible  attack  by 
hostile  Indians,  for  which  purpose  a  system 
of  frontier  posts  generally  known  as  forts  had 
been  established.  As  their  need  diminished 
increasingly  with  the  country's  rising  pros 
perity  and  its  extension  of  railroad  communi 
cation,  instead  of  being  abandoned,  these  posts 
had,  curiously  enough,  been  rather  generally 
improved  as  military  stations  through  the 
expenditure  of  large  sums  of  money  upon 


Organizing  the  Army          113 

buildings  and  equipment.  The  army  post 
brought  business  to  the  near-lying  urban 
communities,  and  it  was  but  natural  that 
powerful  influences  should  be  brought  to  bear 
upon  Congressmen  for  the  purpose  not  only  of 
maintaining  these  now  useless  posts,  but  also 
of  enlarging  and  strengthening  them  still 
further.  It  was  exceedingly  difficult  to  interest 
the  people  in  the  necessity  of  any  reform  in  this 
direction,  for  the  reason  that  our  citizens  did 
not  see  the  danger  to  the  future  safety  of  the 
country  which  the  system  involved.  Not 
withstanding  these  political  difficulties  the 
new  Chief  of  Staff  did  not  hesitate  to  attack 
the  problem  vigorously  and  advocate  the 
reform  by  every  proper  means.  In  an  article 
which  was  published  in  the  Independent  in 
1912  he  declared: 

"A  sound  military  policy  demands  the 
concentration  of  larger  tactical  units  in 
strategic  areas  as  an  urgent  necessity;  as  a 
measure  tending  not  only  to  the  economical 
administration  of  the  army,  but  to  a  great 
increase  in  its  efficiency.  It  demands  also 


ii4  Leonard  Wood 

the  organization  of  a  reserve  and  thorough 
instruction  of  the  organized  militia,  and 
utilization  of  the  army  for  the  instruction 
of  as  many  men  as  possible,  in  order  that 
we  may  have  instructed  men  enough  to  fill 
up  our  regular  army  and  militia  to  war 
strength,  and  furnish  a  reserve  to  supply 
the  losses  incident  to  the  first  months  of 
the  war." 

The  strength  of  the  Regular  Army  since 
the  Spanish-American  War  had  been  fixed  at 
one  hundred  thousand  men,  of  which  number 
only  about  twenty-five  thousand  could  be 
regarded  as  a  mobile  force  owing  to  the  assign 
ments  to  fixed  garrisons,  to  coast  fortifica 
tions,  etc.  General  Wood  boldly  proposed  the 
abandonment  of  all  needless  army  posts,  with 
a  net  saving  of  some  six  million  dollars  a  year, 
and  the  establishment  of  new  stations  favor 
able  for  tactical  training  of  all  arms  of  the 
service  in  combination,  as  well  as  for  relatively 
rapid  concentration  upon  our  frontiers  in  the 
event  of  invasion  of  our  territory.  This 
arrangement,  which  received  the  approval  of 


Organizing  the  Army          115 

Mr.  Henry  L.  Stimson,  the  Secretary  of  War, 
and  the  General  Staff,  contemplated  a  con 
centration  of  the  army  in  either  two  or  three 
strategic  groups  upon  the  Pacific  Coast,  three 
on  the  Atlantic  and  Gulf  Coast,  and  at  least 
two  centrally  located  between  the  Great  Lakes 
and  the  Rio  Grande.  Such  an  arrangement 
would  favor  manoeuvres  in  which  the  National 
Guard  would  be  able  to  operate  and  get  in 
struction  from  regular  troops,  and  the  plan 
would  further  be  the  one  best  adapted  for 
expansion  in  the  event  of  war. 

Since  Wood's  plan  above  outlined  would 
mean  the  abandonment  of  stations  dear  to 
local  communities,  it  aroused  bitter  opposition, 
notwithstanding  the  fact  that  the  economy  in 
administration  of  the  regular  establishment 
of  the  army  would  have  meant,  had  it  been 
devoted  to  military  purposes,  the  addition  to 
our  forces  either  of  ten  regiments  of  infantry 
or  of  one  hundred  thousand  reservists,  upon 
the  basis  then  existing. 

Representative  Hay,  who  was  in  charge  of 
the  House  Committee  on  Military  Affairs 
and  whose  name  was  later  connected  with  the 


n6  Leonard  Wood 

notorious  Hay  Army  Appropriation  Bill,  led 
the  opposition  to  the  staff  plan  and  succeeded 
also  in  inserting  in  the  Army  Bill  a  "joker" 
which  provided  that  any  officer  who  had  not 
served  ten  years  as  an  officer  of  the  line  should 
be  barred  from  the  position  of  Chief  of  Staff. 
Senator  Elihu  Root  remarked  of  this  provision 
"that  it  could  not  better  accomplish  its  pur 
pose  if  it  read  that  after  the  fifth  of  March  no 
man  whose  initials  are  L.  W.  shall  be  Chief  of 
Staff. "  The  joker  could  affect  only  one  other 
General  and  it  would,  had  it  become  a  law  in 
the  days  of  the  old  army,  have  disqualified  all 
but  four  of  the  nineteen  generals  who  have 
successively  occupied  the  position  of  the  head 
of  the  army.  Among  those  who  would  have 
been  debarred  are  Winfield  Scott,  Sheridan, 
McPherson,  Meade,and  Hancock,  while  Grant 
and  Sherman  would  barely  have  escaped  in- 
eligibility.  Like  most  "  jokers"  in  legislation, 
discovery  was  in  this  case  a  fatal  bar  to  en 
action  into  law  and  Mr.  Hay's  plans  were 
frustrated. 

The  proposal  to  concentrate  for  strategic 
purposes  was  only  a  part  of  the  comprehensive 


Organizing  the  Army          117 

plan  of  General  Wood  for  the  reorganization 
of  the  American  military  forces.  He  was  able 
to  show  that  for  an  army  which  really  offered 
no  adequate  protection,  the  United  States 
was  actually  expending  every  year  four-fifths 
as  much  money  as  was  France  for  her  large 
and  efficient  military  machine,  and  he  boldly 
launched  his  plans  for  a  partial  realization  of 
the  principle  of  universal  military  training. 
He  said : 

"  The  needs  of  the  United  States  to  insure 
its  defence  against  invasion  by  the  four  or 
five  great  military  powers  have  been  care 
fully  worked  out.  The  smallest  possible 
provision  is  for  an  army  of  450,000  men. 
The  possibility  of  war  upon  this  continent 
(this  was  written  in  1912)  is  not  immediate, 
it  is  true;  but  it  is  far  greater  than  it  was 
thirty-five  years  ago,  and  every  year  it 
becomes  a  more  practical  question.  .  .  . 

"  The  United  States  needs  at  least  450,000 
men  at  home  and  in  its  foreign  garrisons. 
It  has  something  over  75,000  regulars  and 
about  120,000  militia.  Even  if  these  men 


ii8  Leonard  Wood 

were  highly  trained  for  war — which  they 
are  not — the  country  would  have  less  than 
half  the  forces  that  it  needs  for  self-defence/' 

General  Wood  fully  realized  that  at  this  time 
the  country  was  not  yet  educated  to  the  point 
of  accepting  the  doctrine  of  universal  military 
service.  The  450,000  men  referred  to  was 
only  the  number  to  be  immediately  ready. 
It  was  the  first  step,  and  behind  it  would  come 
the  millions  of  volunteers  or  drafted  men. 

In  vain  the  Chief  of  Staff  attacked  the 
antiquated  system  of  incompetence  which 
has  been  and  largely  is,  even  to-day,  the  great 
weakness  of  the  American  army — the  system 
which  retains  superannuated  bureau  chiefs 
who  have  life  positions,  and  who,  being  in  full 
charge  of  expenditures  are  in  actual  control  of 
the  army.  The  system  has  resulted  in  red 
tape,  interminable  delays,  and  useless  records 
which  are  generally  dispensed  with  in  all 
modern  armies,  as  was  promptly  to  be  learned 
when  our  officers  came  in  contact  with  the 
French  General  Staff.  The  system  was,  how 
ever,  too  firmly  rooted  to  be  dislodged,  and  its 


Organizing  the  Army          119 

retention  was  a  main  cause  of  the  breakdown 
of  the  army  during  the  late  World  War. 

The  characteristic  attitude  of  a  typical 
bureau  chief  in  the  army  was  first  brought 
home  to  Wood  when,  in  outfitting  his  regiment 
of  Rough  Riders,  he  succeeded  in  cutting  the 
red  tape,  though  to  the  immense  disgust  of 
the  chief,  who  in  vexation  burst  out,  "Here  I 
had  a  magnificent  system;  my  office  and 
department  were  in  good  working  order  and 
this  damned  war  comes  along  and  breaks  it  all 
up."  Some  Americans  remember  how  Gen 
eral  Wood,  coming  home  from  the  French 
front  as  Germany's  terrible  drive  of  the  spring 
of  1918  was  being  launched,  and  finding  in 
ertia,  confusion,  and  incompetence  everywhere 
present  in  the  War  Department,  declared  with 
undiplomatic  but  pardonable  vexation  of  this 
desperate  situation  that  it  should  be  met  by 
"sand-bagging"  the  said  bureau  chiefs. 

In  the  spring  of  1911,  the  attempt  was  made 
to  assemble  an  entire  division  of  troops,  the 
smallest  body  that  can  be  considered  an  army. 
After  three  months  of  intensive  work  only  two 
thirds  of  a  division  at  war  strength  had  been 


120  Leonard  Wood 

brought  together  out  of  the  peace-time  skele 
ton  units.  Of  this  attempt  General  Wood 
says: 

'The  concentration  at  San  Antonio  de 
monstrated  conclusively  our  helplessness  to 
meet  with  trained  troops  any  sudden  emer 
gency,  unless  an  adequate  reserve,  from 
which  our  skeleton  organizations  can  be 
filled  up,  is  provided  in  time  of  peace. 
People  forget  that  the  mere  assembly  of 
arms  and  men  is  not  an  army.  An  army  is 
a  well-balanced  entity  with  definitely  pre 
scribed  parts.  .  .  .  The  troops  of  the  di 
vision  which  we  assembled  had  never  had 
any  instruction  as  parts  of  a  division.  None 
of  the  officers  had  ever  commanded  a  divi 
sion  ;  few  had  ever  seen  one,  and  this  applied 
not  only  to  the  younger  officers  but  to  those 
of  long  service. 

"The  Texas  manoeuvres  were  a  great 
object  lesson,  not  of  efficient  organization, 
but  of  lack  of  efficient  organization.  Every 
body  saw  this  who  was  even  moderately 
familiar  with  military  matters. " 


Organizing  the  Army          121 

Our  history  has  revealed  only  too  clearly  the 
folly  of  disregarding  the  counsel  of  Washington 
and  depending  upon  a  system  of  volunteer 
levies  of  troops  made  after,  instead  of  before, 
war  comes.  The  experience  of  the  Civil  War 
showed  that  the  most  serious  of  all  our  troubles 
was  that  competent  officers  could  not  be  ob 
tained  to  train  the  levies  even  when  raised, 
and  this  led  Congress  to  pass  the  Morrill  Act 
of  1862  with  supplementary  legislation  in  1883, 
1890,  and  1907.  In  accord  with  these  acts, 
about  one  hundred  higher  educational  institu 
tions  have  each,  under  the  direction  of  an 
army  officer  detailed  for  the  purpose,  given 
compulsory  military  instruction  to  their  stu 
dents.  These  institutions  include  private 
military  academies,  colleges  of  agriculture, 
and  most  state  universities.  The  non-military 
institutions,  generally  known  as  land-grant 
institutions,  comprise  nearly  one  half  the 
total,  and  in  the  year  1914  they  gave  military 
instruction  to  23,864  men  of  suitable  type  for 
army  officers.  The  amount  of  instruction 
given  was,  however,  generally  inadequate- 
three  hours  per  week  in  term-time  throughout 


122  Leonard  Wood 

two  years — but  the  material  instructed  was 
excellent,  and  the  possibility  for  improvement 
with  new  legislation  was  most  promising. 
General  Wood  devoted  himself  to  the  special 
development  of  this  source  of  supply  of  army 
officers,  and  as  the  special  menace  of  our  in 
volvement  in  the  war  arrived,  he  endeavored  to 
extend  a  modification  of  the  system  to  other 
institutions  and  especially  to  the  large  en 
dowed  universities  of  the  East.  In  this  effort 
he  met  with  considerable  success,  notably  at 
Princeton,  Yale,  and  Harvard  universities. 

The  system  itself  as  applied  to  the  land- 
grant  colleges  underwent  decided  improvement 
under  his  inspiration  and  guidance,  but  it  was 
seriously  hampered  by  the  inadequate  supply 
of  officers  furnished  to  the  army  from  the 
Military  Academy  and  by  the  terms  of  the 
Morrill  Act  which  permitted  of  the  detail  of 
but  one  officer  to  any  one  institution,  even 
though  it  might  have  a  student  body  equiva 
lent  in  size  to  that  of  one  or  more  regiments. 
Notwithstanding  these  defects,  some  of  the 
larger  institutions,  notably  Illinois,  Ohio  State, 
and  Cornell  universities,  contributed  con- 


Organizing  the  Army          123 

siderable  sums  of  money  from  their  own  funds 
for  the  pay  of  student  officers,  and  they  were 
thus  enabled  to  turn  out  some  tens  of  superior 
graduates  each  year,  who  upon  the  basis  of 
careful  inspection  were  found  able  to  qualify 
as  second  lieutenants  of  volunteers. 

The  McKellar  Bill,  framed  to  meet  the  de 
fects  of  the  Morrill  Act  by  increasing  the 
number  of  army  instructors  at  an  institution, 
from  one  to  from  three  to  six  in  the  case  of  the 
forty-nine  larger  institutions,  as  well  as  in 
other  ways  to  increase  the  efficiency  under 
this  system  of  training,  was  not  approved  by 
the  Secretary  of  War  and  hence  it  did  not 
become  a  law. 

A  valuable  ally  in  his  endeavor  to  provide 
company  reserve  officers  for  the  United  States 
Army,  General  Wood  found  in  Dean  Edward 
Orton  of  Ohio  State  University,  an  aid  who 
worked  unselfishly  to  improve  the  character 
of  the  college  military  training;  and,  through 
the  Association  of  American  Agricultural 
Colleges  and  Experiment  Stations,  he  secured 
strong  endorsement  for  a  much  improved 
system  that,  under  the  names  of  the  Reserve 


124  Leonard  Wood 

Officers'  Training  Corps  and  Reserve  Officers' 
Corps,  was  in  1916  incorporated  as  one  of  the 
really  good  features  of  the  Hay  Army  Appro 
priation  Bill.  This  R.  O.  T.  C.  system  laid 
additional  stress  upon  the  military  part  of  the 
training  given,  and  supplied  a  strong  incen 
tive  for  entering  the  corps  through  providing 
graduates  with  the  opportunity  of  service 
with  the  Regular  Army  as  Provisional  Second 
Lieutenants  drawing  full  pay  and  allowances, 
and  with  the  option,  after  a  year  of  service,  of 
going  into  the  reserves,  subject  however  to 
call  in  time  of  war. 

But  General  Wood  was  not  content  with 
this  promise  of  increasing  the  supply  of  army 
officers.  As  Chief  of  Staff,  he  devised  the 
Plattsburg  Camp  system  which  contributed  so 
enormously  to  our  effort  in  the  war.  He  issued 
as  Chief  of  Staff  Facts  of  Interest  Concerning 
the  Military  Resources  and  Policy  of  the  United 
States,  which  was  published  in  January,  1914, 
and  in  which  it  was  stated : 

"The  time  required  for  the  training  of 
extemporized  armies  depends  largely  on  the 


Organizing  the  Army          125 

presence  or  absence  of  trained  instructors. 
If  there  be  a  corps  of  trained  officers  and 
non-commissioned  officers  and  a  tested  or 
ganization  of  higher  units  with  trained 
leaders  and  staff  officers,  the  problem  of 
training  is  limited  to  the  training  of  the 
private  soldier.  This  can  be  accomplished 
in  a  relatively  short  time,  and  under  such 
conditions  if  arms  and  equipment  are  avail 
able  a  respectable  army  can  be  formed 
within  six  months.  But  where  the  leaders 
themselves  are  untrained  and  where  officers 
and  men  must  alike  stumble  toward  effi 
ciency  without  intelligent  guidance,  the 
formation  of  an  efficient  army  is  a  question 
of  years." 

In  his  attempt  to  provide  the  trained  staff 
of  instructors,  General  Wood  encountered 
apathy,  and  the  early  results  were  discourag 
ing.  In  the  first  year,  1913,  only  222,  mostly 
youths,  were  instructed  in  the  Plattsburg 
Camps.  In  the  following  year,  the  invitation 
was  extended  to  business  men  of  college  or 
high  school  training,  and  though  the  men  were 


126  Leonard  Wood 

compelled  to  bear  their  own  expenses,  the 
number  that  passed  through  the  camps  was 
667.  The  idea  had  now,  however,  obtained  a 
firm  hold  and  each  graduate  was  a  missionary 
who  not  only  took  up  the  call  for  national 
defence  but  who  brought  many  others  to  the 
camps  in  the  following  years.  In  1915  and 
1916,  the  numbers  which  passed  through  the 
Plattsburg  Camps  were  respectively  3406  and 
16,139.  The  next  year  we  entered  the  war, 
the  idea  was  immediately  adopted  for  the 
Officers'  Training  Camps,  and  of  150,000 
who  applied,  40,000  had  within  forty  days 
been  found  eligible  upon  the  basis  of  examina 
tion  and  were  later  passed  through  the  first 
camp.  Better  than  any  statements  in  words 
these  figures  tell  the  story  of  what  this  great 
movement  meant  to  the  American  Army  en 
tering  upon  its  responsibilities  in  the  war. 

All  this  time  at  every  opportunity,  General 
Wood,  by  speaking  and  writing,  was  striving 
to  awaken  the  country  to  the  imminent  need 
of  preparing  our  defence  without  any  delay 
whatever.  To  a  lady  in  Boston  who  inquired 
of  him  what  war  it  was  that  he  would  prepare 


Organizing  the  Army          127 

for,  the  General  replied  that  if  the  captain  of 
one  of  the  ocean  liners  lying  at  the  dock  would 
tell  her  what  particular  storm  it  was  that  he 
was  carrying  the  life-boats  for,  he  also  would 
tell  her  what  war  he  desired  to  prepare  to 
meet. 

Speaking  in  1912  he  said: 

' '  We  are  not  fools ;  we  have  wars  going  on 
all  about  us ;  we  know  that  wars  have  always 
occurred;  we  know  that  as  long  as  men  are 
men  wars  will  always  occur.  Every  rational 
man  is  interested  in  securing  arbitration  of 
such  questions  as  can  be  properly  arbitrated, 
but  there  are  many  questions  which  cannot 
be  arbitrated.  ..." 

"All  this  talk  about  our  tremendous 
military  resources  is,  under  the  conditions 
of  modern  war,  rubbish.  Undeveloped 
resources,  in  the  crash  of  a  sudden  war — 
and  modern  wars  are  sudden — are  just 
about  as  valuable  an  asset  as  would  be  an 
undeveloped  gold  mine  in  Alaska  in  a  crisis 
on  Wall  Street.  If  the  other  nation  would 
give  us  a  gentlemanly  notice  of  from  six  to 


128  Leonard  Wood 

eighteen  months  that  he  proposes  to  fight, 
we  should  have  some  time  to  develop  our 
undeveloped  resources;  but  this  is  just  what 
would  not  happen. " 


CHAPTER    V 

THE   FIGHT    AGAINST    PACIFISM 


Date  of  increased  growth  of  the  pacifist  cult — Fate  pointed  to 
Leonard  Wood  as  the  prophet  and  organizer  of  national 
defence — The  unholy  alliance  of  professors,  preachers,  and 
socialists — Organs  and  agents  of  pacifism — The  defence  socie 
ties — Administrative  hostility  to  preparedness  and  to  oppos 
ing  opinions — The  American  League  to  limit  armament — 
Apathy  of  the  Administration  concerning  the  war — Mr. 
Wilson's  peace  move  in  September,  1914 — The  President  de 
clares  to  Congress  that  the  country  is  already  prepared — 
Orders  to  stifle  expression  of  opinion  by  army  officers — 
Wood  is  not  silenced — His  speech  to  the  Mayflower  Society 
— Endorses  the  American  Legion  and  is  rapped  by  Wash 
ington — The  Plattsburg  idea — The  military  obligation  of 
citizenship. 


ON  the  fourth  of  March,  1913,  Woodrow 
Wilson  began  his  administration  as  President 
of  the  United  States.  It  is  a  date  from  which 
to  reckon  the  sudden  and  sinister  growth  of 
the  cult  of  pacifism  which  has  become  a 
menace  for  the  country. 

Fate  had  ordained  that  Leonard  Wood,  who 

had  been  bent  on  preparing  the  nation  for 
9  129 


130  Leonard  Wood 

the  coming  crisis,  should  become  the  dominant 
spirit  of  the  Preparedness  Movement.  It  was 
very  largely  his  knowledge  and  experience 
and  his  military  judgment,  which  supplied  the 
basis  for  the  propaganda  directed  by  the  sev 
eral  defence  societies  later  to  be  organized. 
His  solemn  warnings,  so  insistently  sounded, 
were  again  and  again  to  be  flouted  by  the 
Administration .  Yet  every  one  of  these  warn 
ings  was  destined  to  be  confirmed  by  the  march 
of  events,  as  one  painful  lesson  after  another 
was  to  be  borne  in  upon  the  much  harassed 
American  nation. 

Drawn  closely  together  through  their  as 
sociation  of  Spanish- American  war  days,  the 
bonds  between  Roosevelt  and  Wood  waxed 
yet  stronger  in  the  fight  against  pacifism, — the 
greatest  crisis  in  our  history  and  one  which 
more  than  once  all  but  resulted  in  the  downfall 
of  civilization.  That  this  did  not  occur  at  the 
time  of  Germany's  March  drive  of  1918,  was 
no  fault  of  the  American  Government,  which 
though  already  officially  at  war  for  a  period  of 
eleven  months,  had  at  the  time  placed  in  the 
field  but  four  divisions  of  troops. 


The  Fight  against  Pacifism 


The  strength  of  the  pacifist  movement  has 
lain  very  largely  in  an  unholy  and  very  largely 
unrecognized  alliance  of  the  more  academic 
college  professor  with  the  literal  preacher  and 
the  radical  socialist.  One  has  only  to  glance 
at  the  personnel  of  the  boards  of  directors  of 
the  pacifist  societies  to  find  ample  confirma 
tion  of  the  above  statement. 

It  has  been  the  policy  of  Germany  not  alone 
to  strengthen  the  home  country  through  per 
fecting  an  irresistible  military  machine,  but  at 
the  same  time  to  weaken  and  undermine  the 
defence  elements  in  rival  countries  through 
encouragement  of  every  latent  pacifist  influ 
ence.  No  doubt  to  a  large  extent  uncon 
sciously,  the  American  pacifists  as  a  class  have 
been  cleverly  exploited  by  the  German  agents, 
and  most  intensively  within  the  period  im 
mediately  preceding  and  during  the  World 
War.  A  well-known  pacifist,  in  a  review  of  the 
peace  movement  in  America  which  he  pub 
lished  in  1910,  has  naively  told  us  how  the 
late  Professor  Ernst  Richard  of  Columbia 
University,  the  then  president  both  of  the 
New  York  and  of  the  German-American  Peace 


132  Leonard  Wood 

Societies,  led  the  German-American  societies 
of  the  whole  nation  to  commit  themselves  to 
the  arbitration  movement.  In  the  same  ar 
ticle,  he  gloats  over  the  fact  that  Congressmen 
Richard  Bartholdt  of  Missouri  was  the  lead 
ing  peace  man  in  Congress  and  had  "led  the 
fight  each  year  against  the  inordinate  military 
ambition  of  the  big  navy  group  with  remark 
able  success." 

When  the  war  had  broken  out  in  Europe, 
these  two  pacifist  leaders  soon  became  re 
vealed  as  the  enemies  of  America.  Bartholdt, 
until  his  retirement  from  Congress,  promoted 
every  German  move  in  that  body,  was  on 
terms  of  intimacy  with  the  Imperial  German 
Ambassador,  and  founded  the  notorious 
"  American  Independence  Union"  which  was 
shown  by  the  Providence  Journal  to  have  been 
financed  from  Germany  for  the  express  pur 
pose  of  furthering  German  political  interests 
in  the  United  States. 

When  education  breaks  down,  propaganda 
must  take  its  place  in  any  emergency,  and 
there  is  a  distinction  to  be  recognized  between 
what  might  be  called  legitimate  propaganda — 


General  Wood  at  Plattsburg 


The  Fight  against  Pacifism     133 

an  intensive  presentation  of  vital  facts  and 
reasoned  conclusions — and  the  spurious  ap 
peal  to  the  emotions  and  the  prejudices  which 
is  usually  presented  in  an  alluring  form  of 
fanciful  phrasing,  and  which  has  not  inaptly 
been  termed  "impropaganda." 

Long  before  the  crisis  came  upon  us  with  the 
outbreak  of  the  war  in  Europe,  the  peace 
advocates  had  pre-empted  the  field,  largely 
without  opposition,  and  were  in  consequence 
entrenched  behind  the  stout  wall  of  a  general 
commitment  of  the  public  mind  uninstructed 
as  to  any  counter  arguments.  The  American 
Peace  Society  was  founded  in  1828  and  has 
long  maintained  a  magazine,  The  Advocate  oj 
Peace,  as  well  as  a  corps  of  "peace  lecturers"; 
and  having  lately  been  largely  supported  by 
the  Carnegie  millions,  its  disbursements  an 
nually  have  been  in  the  neighborhood  of  $100,- 
ooo.  The  World  Peace  Foundation  has  had 
an  annual  income  of  nearly  the  same  figure, 
derived  from  the  estate  of  the  late  Edwin 
Ginn,  the  Boston  publisher.  Among  its  paid 
"peace  lecturers"  have  been  the  British  writer, 
Norman  Angell — to  whom  more  than  to  any 


134  Leonard  Wood 

one  not  in  official  life  the  almost  fatal  unpre- 
paredness  of  Great  Britain  is  to  be  ascribed— 
and  Dr.  David  Starr  Jordan,  who  shares  with 
William  Jennings  Bryan  a  like  culpability  as 
respects  the  United  States.  Dr.  Jordan,  lately 
the  head  of  the  National  Educational  Associa 
tion,  has  infected  that  body  with  pacifism  and 
is  reported  to  have  once  made  seventy  peace 
addresses  in  two  months  and  at  another  time 
to  have  delivered  sixty  peace  lectures  on  the 
Pacific  Coast  and  in  the  Middle  West.  The 
World  Peace  Foundation  is  reported  also  to 
have  distributed  twenty -five  thousand  sets  of 
a  series  of  leaflets  directed  against  preparing 
the  nation  for  defence.  Andrew  Carnegie's 
Rectorial  Address  at  St.  Andrew's  University 
in  Scotland,  in  which  the  iron  magnate  ap 
pealed  to  students  not  to  volunteer  for  war 
service  but  to  be  conscientious  objectors,  was 
distributed  in  hundreds  of  thousands  of  copies 
and  translated  into  several  languages.  The 
Lake  Mohonk  Peace  Conferences  were  started 
in  1884  and  the  annual  gatherings  had  been 
given  much  prominence  by  the  American  Press. 
As  against  this  record  of  activity  of  the  peace 


The  Fight  against  Pacifism     135 

societies  during  the  pre-war  period,  that  of 
the  preparedness  advocates  has  been  meagre 
enough.  Until  the  war  broke  out  in  Europe 
there  had  been  but  one  well-known  American 
organization  for  the  promotion  of  the  national 
defence, — the  Navy  League — an  organization 
which  was  founded  during  President  Roose 
velt's  administration  and  with  his  active  co 
operation.  Before  the  war  it  published  a 
modest  journal,  The  Navy  League  Journal,  and 
it  had  maintained  a  more  or  less  precarious 
existence. 

With  the  outbreak  of  the  war  the  red- 
blooded  element  of  the  population  and  the 
men  of  vision  of  the  nation  came  together  to 
support  the  organization  and  give  it  greater 
power  and  influence.  In  December,  1914, 
some  two  hundred  and  fifty  prominent  Amer 
icans  came  together  in  New  York  City  under 
the  leadership  of  Mr.  S.  Stanwood  Menken, 
Major  George  Haven  Putnam,  Henry  L. 
Stimson  and  others,  and  organized  the  Na 
tional  Security  League  as  a  non-political 
association  to  promote  an  adequate  national 
defence. 


Leonard  Wood 


Shortly  after  the  organization  of  the  Na 
tional  Security  League  there  was  formed  in 
the  office  of  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons,  publishers, 
the  American  Rights  League,  with  Major 
George  Haven  Putnam  as  president  and  mov 
ing  spirit.  In  spite  of  its  limited  financial 
support,  this  organization  played  a  part  in 
arousing  the  nation  to  the  responsibilities 
which  it  will  be  difficult  to  overestimate.  It 
was  thoroughout  the  indomitable  will  and  the 
spendid  patriotism  of  this  veteran  of  the 
American  Civil  War  which  triumphed  over 
one  rebuff  after  another  from  a  hostile  admin 
istration. 

No  sooner  had  the  National  Security  League 
organized,  than  a  group  of  pacifists  came  to 
gether  in  New  York  City  at  the  call  of  Bishop 
Greer,  President  Nicholas  Murray  Butler, 
Mr.  Oswald  Garrison  Villard,  and  others,  and 
founded  the  American  League  to  Limit  Arma 
ments  and  to  "voice  a  protest  against  agita 
tion  for  increased  armament  in  this  country.  " 

The  violent  opposition  which  the  Adminis 
tration  evinced  toward  any  expression  of 
opinion  that  differed  in  any  way  from  his  own, 


The  Fight  against  Pacifism     137 

was  the  direct  cause  of  a  division  within  the 
National  Security  League  between  those  who 
believed  that  the  Administration  should  not, 
or  could  not,  be  wisely  opposed,  even  when  his 
policy  would  leave  the  country  open  to  inva 
sion,  and  those  who  favored  more  independent 
action.  This  conflict  of  opinion  resulted  in 
the  more  outspoken  elements  of  the  League 
seceding  from  the  original  organization  and  in 
July,  1915,  founding  the  American  Defence 
Society  with  Theodore  Roosevelt  as  Honorary 
President  and  Dr.  David  Jayne  Hill  and  Presi 
dent  John  Grier  Hibben  of  Princeton  Uni 
versity  on  the  directing  board. 

War  was  declared  in  Europe  during  the  first 
week  of  August,  1914,  and  the  atrocities  and 
the  rape  of  Belgium  occurred  August  5th-8th 
and  August  nth-i4th.  On  August  I9th,  the 
President  issued  a  proclamation  in  which  he 
said,  "We  must  be  impartial  in  thought  as 
well  as  in  action,  must  put  a  curb  upon  our 
sentiments  as  well  as  upon  every  transaction 
that  might  be  construed  as  a  preference  of  one 
party  to  the  struggle  before  another."  The 
first  reverse  to  the  German  army  at  the  battle 


138  Leonard  Wood 

of  the  Marne  was  already  beginning  to  be  ap 
parent  on  September  7th,  on  which  date  the 
Kaiser  sent  to  Mr.  Wilson  that  remarkable  re 
quest  for  "an  impartial  opinion"  concerning 
the  war.  The  President  replied,  "I  am  hon 
ored  that  you  should  have  turned  to  me  as  the 
representative  of  a  people  truly  disinterested 
as  regards  the  present  war.  ...  I  speak 
thus  frankly  because  I  know  you  will  expect 
and  wish  me  to  do  so  as  one  friend  speaks  to 
another/'  and  entered  no  protest  whatever 
against  the  barbarous  acts  of  Germany. 

Acting  upon  stimulation  from  Count  von 
Bernstorff  on  this  first  German  setback,  Mr. 
Wilson  proclaimed  on  September  Qth  a  day  of 
prayer  for  peace,  and  he  began  negotiations 
through  Berlin  with  a  view  to  bringing  it  about. 
His  effort  was  effectually  blocked  by  the  Allies 
in  their  agreement  not  to  make  peace  without 
common  consent. 

Though  under  the  Constitution  the  Presi 
dent  is  Commander-in-Chief  of  the  military 
and  naval  forces  of  the  Republic,  and  though 
with  the  outbreak  of  war  in  Europe  every 
other  neutral  nation  of  any  consequence  began 


The  Fight  against  Pacifism     139 

to  give  thought  to  the  national  defence;  Mr. 
Wilson  evinced  not  the  slightest  interest  in 
our  country's  unprotected  condition,  and  it  is 
known  that  he  made  no  endeavors  to  secure 
correct  information  upon  national  defence 
from  any  responsible  officer  of  either  the  army 
or  navy  other  than  the  civilian  secretaries. 
Whether  the  warnings  which  were  volunteered 
in  most  decisive  terms  penetrated  into  his 
seclusion  cannot  be  positively  asserted,  but  it 
is  known  that  Admiral  Bradley  A.  Fiske,  the 
Naval  Aide  for  Operations  (the  highest  ranking 
officer  of  the  navy  and  the  nearest  equivalent 
in  our  navy  to  a  Chief  of  Staff) ,  sent  an  official 
letter  to  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy  which  was 
dated  November  9,  1914,  and  which  reported 
the  navy  "unprepared  for  war."  This  official 
letter  of  warning  from  our  foremost  naval 
strategist  was  pigeon-holed  by  the  Secretary, 
who  afterward  publicly  denied  that  he  had 
ever  received  it.  Admiral  Fiske' s  diary,  which 
has  since  been  published,  shows,  however, 
that  there  were  several  sharp  exchanges  be 
tween  him  and  the  Secretary  upon  the  subject 
and  the  letter  was  later  unearthed  in  response 


140  Leonard  Wood 

to  a  resolution  of  the  United  States  Senate  and 
widely  published  throughout  the  country  on 
April  23,  1915.  The  American  Defence  So 
ciety  on  May  12,  1916,  drew  the  President's 
attention  to  this  letter  and  on  May  22d  re 
ceived  his  acknowledgment  of  the  com 
munication. 

On  December  17,  1914,  Admiral  Fiske 
testified  before  the  House  Committee  on 
Naval  Affairs  that  not  only  was  the  navy  not 
ready  for  war,  but  that  it  could  not  be  made 
ready  in  five  years,  and  these  statements  were 
at  once  published  throughout  the  country. 
Notwithstanding  these  facts,  the  Secretary  of 
the  Navy  in  his  report  dated  December,  1914, 
wrote:  "This  has  been  a  proud  and  solemn 
year  for  the  American  navy.  .  .  .  Allow 
me,  Mr.  President,  to  congratulate  you  as  its 
Commander-in- Chief  upon  the  record  it  has 
made,  upon  its  preparedness  for  duty,  upon  the 
reliance  you  can  place  upon  it  in  any  time  of 
national  need." 

Disregarding  the  solemn  warnings  of  Gen 
eral  Wood  and  Admiral  Fiske  that  we  were 
utterly  unprepared  in  a  military  sense,  Mr. 


The  Fight  against  Pacifism     141 

Wilson,  speaking  on  December  8,   1914,  de 
clared  to  the  joint  houses  of  Congress: 

"We  shall  not  alter  our  attitude  because 
some  amongst  us  are  nervous  and  excited. 
.  .  .  The  question  has  not  changed  its 
aspects  because  the  times  are  not  normal. 
.  .  .  Let  there  be  no  misconception. 
The  country  has  been  misinformed.  We 
have  not  been  negligent  of  national  defence. " 

Yet  considerably  more  than  a  year  later 
General  Wood  felt  compelled  to  say: 

' '  We  know  this,  that  if  a  war  does  hit  us, 
we  have  not  in  any  particular — I  make  no 
exception  whatever — adequate  reserve  ma 
terials  for  the  first  force  we  should  have  to 
call." 

From  the  outbreak  of  the  war,  the  Adminis 
tration  took  strong  means  to  stifle  expressions 
concerning  defence  necessities.  Like  Lord 
Roberts  in  England,  General  Wood  and  Ad 
miral  Fiske  in  this  country,  in  this  supreme 
crisis,  elected  to  warn  the  country  at  whatever 


i42  Leonard  Wood 

cost  to  their  own  careers.  On  February  23, 
1915,  General  Order  No.  10  was  issued  to 
the  army  enjoining  officers  to  "refrain,  until 
further  orders,  from  giving  out  for  publication 
any  interview,  statement,  discussion,  or  article 
on  the  military  situation  in  the  United  States 
or  abroad,  as  any  expression  of  their  views  on 
the  subject  at  present  is  prejudicial  to  the  best 
interests  of  the  service." 

Had  this  order  been  strictly  obeyed  by  Gen 
eral  Wood,  it  is  not  unlikely  that  the  war 
might  have  had  a  different  ending,  for  it  was 
his  voice  of  authority,  reinforced  by  the  splen 
did  support  and  the  wonderful  prestige  of  the 
strenuous  ex-President,  and  echoed  and  sent 
abroad  by  George  Haven  Putnam,  Henry  A. 
Wise  Wood,  James  M.  Beck,  and  others,  and 
by  the  defence  societies  generally,  which 
quickened  the  patriotic  national  conscience 
and  aroused  the  fighting  spirit  of  the  nation. 
Speaking  before  the  Mayflower  Society,  Gen 
eral  Wood  said: 

'The  deeds  of  our  ancestors  are  things  to 
be  proud  of.     But  our  duty  to  our  descend- 


The  Fight  against  Pacifism     H3 

ants  is  something  to  be  thinking  of  now. 
The  country  has  never  been  in  a  more  criti 
cal  condition  than  it  is  to-day,  and  what  the 
future  brings  to  us  must  depend  very  much 
upon  the  wisdom  of  our  people.  .  .  .  We 
owe  it  to  ourselves  and  to  those  who  come 
after  us  to  take  heed,  not  to  the  idle  prating 
of  dreamers,  but  to  the  stern  facts  which 
surround  us  and  which  lie  ahead  of  us. 
What  we  want  must  not  influence  us  too 
much;  we  must  take  into  consideration 
conditions  which  we  must  meet.  We  may 
desire  world  peace,  we  may  believe  in  arbi 
tration,  and  we  may  pray  devoutly  that  war 
will  never  come  to  us,  but  we  should  not 
forget  the  teachings  of  history  or  neglect  the 
observation  and  deductions  of  common 
sense.  .  .  . 

"In  the  old  times,  when  weapons  were 
simple,  and  almost  every  man  had  to  use  a 
weapon  of  some  sort  to  get  a  part  of  his 
food,  training  in  the  use  of  arms  was  easily 
acquired.  In  these  days,  when  arms  are 
intricate,  and  it  takes  a  long  time  to  learn 
how  to  use  them;  when  steam  navigation 


144  Leonard  Wood 

and  rapid  transit  have  divided  the  distance 
that  separates  us  from  our  possible  enemies 
by  ten,  it  is  all  the  more  necessary  that 
preparation  should  be  made  in  advance.  It 
is  all  nonsense  to  say  that  untrained  men 
can  meet  with  success  just  as  good  men 
well-trained  and  well-disciplined. " 

In  March  of  1915,  with  the  approval  of 
General  Wood,  the  American  Legion  was  or 
ganized  with  a  view  to  secure  a  first  reserve  of 
250,000  to  300,000  men,  all  of  whom  would 
agree  to  respond  at  once  to  any  call  for  service. 
Washington  indicated  its  displeasure,  and, 
without  first  consulting  the  General  to  de 
termine  whether  the  absurd  charges  made 
through  the  press  by  the  pacifist  Bishop  Greer 
were  true,  demanded  an  investigation  to  see 
whether  this  was  not  in  violation  of  General 
Order  No.  10  enjoining  officers  of  the  army 
from  comment  on  the  military  situation.  The 
correspondence  which  followed  entirely  vin 
dicated  the  General  by  showing  conclusively 
that  the  charges  made  in  the  press  were  with 
out  foundation;  but  the  intent  of  the  rap  from 


The  Fight  against  Pacifism     145 

headquarters  to  force  him  into  silence  was  not 
lost  either  upon  the  General  or  upon  the 
public. 

A  desire  on  the  part  of  the  public  to  know 
the  truth  began  now  to  be  more  apparent,  and 
General  Wood's  addresses  on  the  subject  of 
preparedness  were  in  demand.  Located  at 
Governor's  Island  in  New  York  Harbor,  he 
was  able  to  speak  to  public  audiences  in  the 
Metropolis  or  at  near-lying  communities,  and 
did  so  sometimes  two  or  three  times  a  week. 
While  scrupulously  careful  to  make  no  criti 
cism  of  his  superiors,  he  nevertheless  lost  no 
opportunity  to  drive  home  those  fundamental 
lessons  which  the  crisis  demanded.  His  time 
was,  however,  in  the  main  given  over  to  the 
building  up  of  the  military  forces  under  his 
jurisdiction,  and  these  included  the  National 
Guard  which  it  was  his  duty  to  inspect. 

The  Plattsburg  Camps  for  the  training  of 
officers  which  he  had  planned  and  organized 
in  1913  and  originally  intended  for  youths  only, 
were  now  extended  to  those  business  men  of 
the  country  who  had  had  college  or  high  school 
instruction  and  whose  careers  in  the  business 

10 


146  Leonard  Wood 

world  showed  that  they  were  especially  fitted 
to  become  officers  in  the  army.  Under  the 
inspiration  of  the  General,  the  business  men 
responded  to  the  call  with  enthusiasm,  and 
having  passed  through  the  camps  they  went 
out  as  so  many  missionaries  to  spread  the  gos 
pel  of  preparedness.  Such  men  as  Robert 
Bacon,  a  former  Secretary  of  State  of  the 
United  States,  and  John  Purroy  Mitchel,  the 
Mayor  of  New  York  City,  elected  to  become 
"rookies,"  and  the  splendid  effect  of  their 
influence  it  would  be  difficult  to  overestimate. 
In  the  campaign  which  the  General  made  to 
secure  recruits  for  the  camps,  as  well  as  in 
lectures  delivered  to  the  men,  the  opportunity 
was  found  to  sound  the  call  to  arms  and  to 
dispel  the  erroneous  impressions  concerning 
what  the  military  history  of  the  country  has 
been.  In  setting  forth  the  purpose  of  these 
camps  the  General  said  in  an  address: 

"The  Plattsburg  Idea  is  expressed  by  the 
words — 'Preparation  for  National  Service.' 
Primarily,  service  in  war,  because  training 
for  such  service  is  generally  wanting  in  this 


Mayor  Mitchel  and  General  Wood  reviewing  parade  of  the  Alaska 
soldiers  at  New  York  City  Hall 


The  Fight  against  Pacifism     147 

country.  Incidentally,  the  training  is  train 
ing  for  life,  for  with  the  spirit  of  service  for 
the  nation  in  time  of  war  goes  the  spirit  of 
service  for  the  nation  and  the  community 
in  time  of  peace.  The  Plattsburg  spirit 
voices  the  principle  of  individual  obligation 
for  national  service  and  an  appreciation  of 
the  fact  that  with  equality  of  opportunity 
and  service  goes  equally  the  obligation  to 
the  limit  of  our  physical  and  mental  capacity. 
"It  is  the  spirit  of  patriotism;  it  voices 
Universal  Military  Service.  At  first  it  was 
a  voice  crying  in  the  wilderness.  Now  it  is 
becoming  a  voice  which  is  heard  in  the  high 
ways  and  byways  of  the  nation.  It  is  not 
only  a  call  to  service,  an  appeal  to  every 
man's  sense  of  duty,  but  it  is  also  a  voice  of 
warning — an  attempt  to  awaken  a  slumber 
ing  people  to  a  sense  of  present  unprepared- 
ness  and  inability  to  meet  its  soldier 
responsibility  by  citizens  of  a  democracy, — 
of  a  democracy  whose  main  army  in  time  of 
real  stress  and  trouble,  in  case  of  war  with 
a  strong  nation  must  be  the  people,  trained 
to  reasonable  efficiency  in  the  use  of  arms  in 


Leonard  Wood 


order  that  they  may  be  able  to  effec 
tively  defend  their  country  in  time  of 
need.  .  .  . 

"It  appeals  to  the  good  sense  of  our 
women  to  remember  that  while  we  are 
striving  for  world  peace,  and  all  in  agree 
ment  that  war  is  horrible  and  regrettable, 
that  nevertheless  it  is  often  necessary  and 
unavoidable  in  the  discharge  of  our  duties 
and  in  the  defence  of  the  right.  It  appeals 
to  them  not  to  permit  conditions  to  continue 
which  will  certainly  result  in  their  men  being 
sent  into  the  struggle  against  their  better 
prepared  antagonists  willing,  but  almost 
useless,  sacrifices.  .  .  . 

"It  (the  Plattsburg  spirit)  strives  to  im 
press  upon  the  people  that  the  sinews  of  war 
are  not  number  and  wealth  alone.  On  the 
contrary,  that  the  real  sinews  of  war  are  the 
bodies  and  spirits  of  men,  trained  and  dis 
ciplined,  and  backed  by  the  spirit  of  sacrifice 
and  an  appreciation  of  citizenship  obligation 
in  war  as  well  as  in  peace.  .  .  . 

"If  the  Plattsburg  spirit  becomes  the 
spirit  of  the  nation,  the  result  will  be  na- 


The  Fight  against  Pacifism     149 

tional  solidarity  to  an  extent  never  before 
dreamt  of  in  this  land  of  ours.   .    .    . 

"A  general  acceptance  of  the  Plattsburg 
idea  means  the  building  up  of  a  spirit  of 
real  Americanism,  a  spirit  which  will  be 
strong,  to  make  America  what  she  must  be 
if  she  is  going  to  endure — a  real  melting  pot 
—in  which  the  various,  and  often  discordant 
elements  which  are  now  swarming  to  our 
shores  will  be  fused  into  one  common  mass 
of  Americanism.  It  means  the  creation 
of  a  nation,  animated  and  actuated  by  a 
strong  national  spirit.  .  .  .  We  shall  have 
a  national  spirit  actuated  by  high  purpose 
and  firm  resolve,  replacing  sentimentality 
marked  by  unwholesome  characteristics — 
characteristics  which  foreshadow  the  de 
cadence  of  a  people." 

In  1915,  General  Wood  lectured  before  the 
students  of  Princeton  University  on  "The 
Military  Obligation  of  Citizenship,"  and  his 
lectures  were  issued  in  book  form  by  the  Uni 
versity  with  an  introduction  by  President  Hib- 
ben.  In  these  lectures,  as  in  all  others  which  he 


150  Leonard  Wood 

delivered,  the  preparation  which  the  General 
enjoined  was  not  for  but  against  war;  and  he 
spoke  before  students  not  only  at  Princeton 
but  at  Harvard  University,  at  Williams  Col 
lege,  at  the  University  of  Michigan,  and  else 
where. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE    DARKENING  OF    COUNSEL 

Colonel  House  urges  lifting  the  British  blockade — German  agents 
preach  "  Freedom  of  the  Seas"-  -"Weasel"  words,  notes, 
and  ultimatums — House  under  pressure  urges  the  President 
to  secure  expert  reports  on  national  defence — These  reports 
kept  secret  against  public  protest — Wood  blamed  for  Roose 
velt's  address  at  Plattsburg — Mr.  Wilson  supports  view  that 
the  war  was  not  made  in  Germany — The  country  deceived 
by  the  President  on  nature  of  expert  reports — Henry  A. 
Wise  Wood  forces  out  the  secret  report — Mr.  Wilson  pares 
down  the  defence  programme — Naval  officers  punished  for  re 
vealing  the  truth — Secretary  Daniels  deceives  Congressional 
committee  regarding  naval  deficiences. 

ALREADY  in  the  spring  of  1915  the  British 
blockade  of  Germany,  though  not  rigidly 
and  effectively  enforced  for  fear  of  alienating 
American  sentiment,  was  nevertheless  press 
ing  upon  the  enemy's  vitals  and  causing  great 
distress  and  greater  apprehension.  American 
and  other  neutral  shippers  were  making  un 
heard  of  profits  by  even  this  restricted  trade 
with  Germany,  and  the  German  cry  for  "Free 
dom  of  the  Seas"  was  resounding  from  every 

151 


i52  Leonard  Wood 

American  rostrum  where  German  propa 
gandists  could  get  a  hearing.  The  Kaiser's 
agents,  Count  von  Bernstorff,  Dr.  Dernburg, 
and  Dr.  Kuehnemann  were  expounding  this 
doctrine  both  in  and  out  of  season. 

In  a  little  tract  by  Dr.  Kuehnemann  which 
was  printed  in  the  German  language  and 
widely  circulated  among  German- Americans, 
it  was  declared  that  the  Germans  "fight  the 
good  fight  for  the  freedom  of  the  seas,  for  the 
freedom  of  nations;  their  victory  is  the  one 
hope  of  civilization  itself."  President  Wilson 
dispatched  to  the  British  Government  numer 
ous  protests,  each  more  vigorous  than  the 
last,  against  the  restrictions  which  were  being 
placed  upon  the  American  trade,  and  his  con 
fidential  adviser,  Colonel  House,  was  sent 
abroad  as  a  "  superambassador  "  (not  confirmed 
by  the  United  States  Senate),  and  he  made 
arrangements  with  the  German  Foreign  Office 
for  the  setting  up  of  freedom  of  the  seas 
through  lifting  the  British  blockade.  German 
consent  to  this  project  was,  of  course,  assured 
in  advance  and  was  at  once  accorded,  but 
Colonel  House  naturally  met  with  no  success 


The  Darkening  of  Counsel     153 

in  his  efforts  to  induce  the  British  Govern 
ment  to  adopt  a  policy  which  must  inevitably 
spell  defeat  for  the  Allies,  and  the  full  success 
of  Germany's  plan  for  conquest. 

When,  during  the  illness  of  Colonel  House 
at  Paris,  the  false  news  was  spread  in  the  press 
that  he  had  died,  Count  von  Bernstorfl  gave 
to  the  Berlin  Tageblatt  an  interview  in  which 
he  said: 

"  No  more  honest  pacifist  ever  lived.  He 
told  me  personally  that  he  had  just  as 
energetically  protested  in  London  against 
the  British  blockade  as  the  U-boat  war,  and 
couldn't  believe  that  either  would  lead  to  a 
decision.  ...  I  deeply  deplore  that  I  did 
not  see  this  dear  friend  once  more  and  that 
he  did  not  live  to  see  the  perfection  of  his 
grand  ideals." 

On  the  7th  of  May,  1915,  after  deliberate 
preparations,  Germany  perpetrated  the  out 
rage  of  sinking  the  Lusitania,  an  act  of  Hun- 
nish  barbarism  which  profoundly  moved  the 
American  people,  more  than  a  hundred  of 


154  Leonard  Wood 

whom  had  been  sacrificed;  but  officially  it 
brought  only  the  reaction  of  the  "too  proud 
to  fight'*  address,  and  that  long  series  of  diplo 
matic  notes  which  extended  over  a  year  and 
ten  months. 

Unsuccessful  in  his  attempt  to  lift  the  Brit 
ish  blockade,  Colonel  House  returned  to  Wash 
ington,  and  some  months  later  Mr.  Wilson 
appeared  before  the  joint  houses  of  Congress 
to  advocate  the  twin  policies  of  "peace  with 
out  victory"  and  "freedom  of  the  seas." 

A  month  after  the  Lusitania  outrage,  the 
Conference  Committee  on  National  Prepared 
ness  was  organized  among  the  defence  societies, 
with  Henry  A.  Wise  Wood  as  chairman. 
The  wisdom  of  this  union  of  effort  was  at  once 
to  be  proven,  though  the  facts  which  we  are 
here  to  present  have  not  before  been  given  to 
the  public.  The  chairman  of  the  Conference 
Committee  was  a  friend  of  John  Hays  Ham 
mond,  and  both  he  and  Mr.  Hammond  were, 
during  the  summer,  the  neighbors  of  Colonel 
House  at  his  home  near  Cape  Ann,  Massa 
chusetts.  Since  House  was  the  unique  con 
fidential  friend  of  the  President,  Wood  made  a 


The  Darkening  of  Counsel     155 

strong  appeal  to  Hammond  to  see  if  he  could 
not  through  House  get  the  President  to  move 
in  the  now  desperate  matter  of  preparing  our 
national  defence.  This  Hammond  did,  but 
with  no  other  result  than  a  suggestion  from 
House  to  get  in  touch  with  the  Secretary  of 
War,  Mr.  Garrison.  This  failing  to  bring 
results,  the  appeal  was  renewed  by  Mr.  Wise 
Wood,  though  in  a  different  way.  In  a  per 
sonal  letter  he  writes: 

"I  hunted  up  Hammond  and  told  him 
something  really  had  to  be  done,  saying  that 
the  sentiment  for  preparedness  was  rising 
so  rapidly  throughout  the  country  that  the 
inactivity  of  the  Administration  would  soon 
become  a  public  scandal,  and  that  the 
Democratic  party  would  have  only  the 
President  to  thank  if  it  should  be  utilized 
by  its  political  opponents.  I  suggested 
that  Hammond  see  House  again  and  point 
out  to  him  the  political  danger  into  which 
the  President  was  running  because  of  his 
refusal  to  take  the  steps  necessary  to  pre 
pare  the  army  and  navy  for  active  service. 


156  Leonard  Wood 

Hammond  said  that  he  would  act  at  once, 
and  did.  He  saw  House  and  told  the  latter 
that  unless  proper  defensive  measures  were 
immediately  taken  by  the  Administration, 
the  President  might  expect  the  Republican 
party  to  make  a  political  issue  of  Wilson's 
inactivity.  Hammond  told  House  that 
while  the  Republican  party  would  not  wish 
to  make  political  capital  out  of  such  a 
matter,  Mr.  Wilson  was  so  shaping  affairs 
that  the  Republican  party  in  order  to  fulfil 
its  duty  would  be  compelled  to  attack  him 
for  his  dereliction.  This,  Hammond  told 
me,  greatly  aroused  Colonel  House,  who 
said  that  he  would  write  at  once  to  the 
President,  at  Cornish,  and  recommend  that 
something  be  done.  Immediately  after  Mr. 
Hammond's  action,  came  Mr.  Wilson's  half 
hearted  request  for  recommendations  by 
the  General  Board  of  the  Navy  and  the 
General  Staff  of  the  Army." 

These  requests  for  reports  on  what  was 
necessary  for  the  national  defence  were  sent 
from  Cornish  on  July  2ist,  and  the  reports  of 


The  Darkening  of  Counsel     157 

the  two  boards  were  submitted  to  the  Presi 
dent  on  July  3Oth.  The  reports  of  these 
expert  boards,  containing  as  they  did  such 
vitally  important  information  for  the  safety 
of  the  country,  were  not  made  public.  In  the 
public  mind  was  the  question,  Was  the  Presi 
dent  right  when  he  assured  the  joint  houses  of 
Congress,  and  through  them  the  nation,  that 
they  had  been  misinformed  and  that  the 
national  defence  was  already  secure?  or,  Did 
a  desperate  condition  exist  such  as  General 
Wood,  Admiral  Fiske,  Mr.  Wise  Wood,  Con 
gressman  Gardner,  and  a  number  of  former 
Secretaries  of  War  had  asserted?  If  these 
latter  were  right  and  the  President  wrong,  it 
was  obviously  necessary  to  at  once  utilize 
every  available  agency  to  the  end  of  support 
ing  representatives  in  Congress  when  that 
body  should  meet  and  take  up  the  considera 
tion  of  the  necessary  appropriation  bills.  In 
this  period  of  suspense,  the  National  Defence 
Society  presented  to  the  President  a  formal 
request  that  the  recommendations  of  the 
expert  boards  be  made  public.  In  the  dis 
patches  of  November  16,  1915,  it  was  given 


158  Leonard  Wood 

out,  after  a  Cabinet  meeting,  that  Mr.  Wilson, 
against  the  advice  of  the  then  Secretary  of 
War  (Mr.  Garrison)  refused  to  make  these 
recommendations  public;  his  attitude  being 
reported  to  be  that  as  head  of  the  Government 
he  was  responsible  for  the  general  policies 
urged  and  that  his  decisions  should  be  given 
out  in  advance  of  the  recommendations  of  the 
experts. 

About  a  fortnight  later  the  first  great  Con 
gress  of  the  National  Security  League  was  held 
at  Chicago,  and  three  former  Secretaries  of 
War  joined  with  the  entire  convention  in 
unanimously  passing  a  resolution  which  re 
quested  the  President  to  at  once  make  public 
the  recommendations  of  the  experts.  The 
word  recommendations,  rather  than  reports, 
was  used  in  the  resolution  so  that  it  should  be 
clear  that  nothing  which  the  public  was  not 
entitled  to  know  (such  as  secret  military  in 
formation)  was  intended.  The  request  was 
denied,  the  only  reply  vouchsafed  being  a  note 
from  the  President's  secretary  acknowledging 
receipt  of  the  resolution. 

In  the  summer  of  1915  ex-President  Roose- 


The  Darkening  of  Counsel     159 

velt  was  one  of  a  number  of  public  men  who 
addressed  the  "rookies"  at  the  Plattsburg 
Camp.  Unfortunately,  the  report  of  his  ad 
dress,  which  had  been  prepared  with  special 
care  and  had  been  gone  over  with  General 
Wood  and  Robert  Bacon  and  received  their 
approval,  was,  in  the  press  accounts,  combined 
with  statements  which  Mr.  Roosevelt  had 
made  when  talking  to  press  correspondents 
outside  the  military  reservation  as  he  was 
waiting  for  the  train  to  take  him  back  to  New 
York.  Some  of  the  statements  which  ap 
peared  in  this  interview,  but  which  were  not 
made  in  the  Plattsburg  address,  were  that  for 
thirteen  months  the  United  States  had  played 
an  ignoble  part  among  the  nations  and  had 
tamely  submitted  to  seeing  the  weak  whom 
we  had  covenanted  to  protect,  grievously 
wronged;  that  we  had  seen  our  men,  women, 
and  children  murdered  on  the  high  seas  with 
out  action  on  our  part ;  and  had  used  elocution 
as  a  substitute  for  action.  "Reliance  upon 
high-sounding  words  unbacked  by  deeds/' 
said  Colonel  Roosevelt,  "is  proof  of  a  mind 
that  dwells  only  in  the  realm  of  shadow  and 


160  Leonard  Wood 

of  sham."  He  denounced  those  who  would 
substitute  the  platitudes  of  peace  congresses 
for  military  preparedness. 

For  permitting  the  supposed  address  to  be 
made,  Secretary  Garrison  administered  a 
rebuke  to  General  Wood,  to  which  the  Gen 
eral  promptly  replied:  "Your  telegram  re 
ceived,  and  the  policy  laid  down  will  be  rigidly 
adhered  to." 

Even  before  the  Lusitania  outrage,  red- 
blooded  Americans  who  were  not  pro-German 
in  their  sympathies  had  probably  with  few 
exceptions  become  convinced  that  the  World 
War  had  been  made  in  Germany  as  a  war  of 
conquest,  and  their  sentiments  had  been  well 
voiced  by  the  late  Congressman  Gardner  when 
he  declared  that  the  issue  was  one  between 
autocracy  and  democracy,  and  that  before  we 
could  have  lasting  peace  one  or  the  other  must 
go  down  in  ruins.  The  German  propaganda, 
however,  aided  by  a  few  renegade  Britishers, 
had  been  going  to  great  lengths  in  order  to 
show  that  instead  of  being  made  in  Germany 
the  war  was  the  work  of  diplomats,  that  one 
nation  was  as  guilty  as  another,  or  if  any  one 


©u.  &  u. 


Charles  E.  Hughes  and  General  Wood  at  Plattsburg 


The  Darkening  of  Counsel      161 

was  more  culpable  than  the  others  it  was  Great 
Britain.  Unfortunately,  on  a  number  of  oc 
casions  this  German  motif  was  exploited  by 
President  Wilson  in  his  speeches.  In  Sep 
tember,  1914,  after  the  Battle  of  the  Marne 
and  the  rape  of  Belgium,  he  wrote  to  the 
Kaiser  that  he  was  "the  representative  of  a 
people  truly  disinterested  as  respects  the 
present  war."  In  May,  1916,  he  said  of  the 
war  in  a  public  address,  "with  its  causes  and 
its  objects  we  are  not  concerned.  The  obscure 
fountains  from  which  its  stupendous  flood  has 
burst  forth  we  are  not  interested  to  search  for 
or  explore."  Seven  months  later  in  another 
address  he  said: 

"Have  you  ever  heard  what  started  the 
present  war?  If  you  have,  I  wish  you 
would  publish  it  because  nobody  else  has  so 
far  as  I  can  gather.  Nothing  in  particular 
started  it  but  everything  in  general.  There 
had  been  growing  up  in  Europe  a  mutual 
suspicion,  an  interchange  of  conjectures 
about  what  this  government  and  that  gov 
ernment  was  going  to  do,  an  interlacing  of 


162  Leonard  Wood 

alliances  and  understandings,  a  complex 
web  of  intrigue  and  spying,  that  presently 
was  sure  to  entangle  the  whole  of  the  family 
of  mankind  on  that  side  of  the  water  in  its 
meshes." 

Two  months  later,  speaking  for  the  United 
States  in  a  note  to  the  Allied  nations  dated 
December  20,  1916,  the  President  "took  the 
liberty"  of  calling  attention  to  the  fact  that 
the  "  objects  which  the  statesmen  of  bel 
ligerents  of  both  sides  have  in  mind  are 
virtually  the  same." 

During  the  summer  and  the  autumn  of  1915 
there  was  ever  increasing  impatience  over  the 
inaction  of  the  Administration  with  respect  to 
the  national  defence,  but  this  feeling  was  to 
some  extent  kept  in  check  by  vague  sugges 
tions  which  emanated  from  Washington  that 
Mr.  Wilson  was  earnestly  considering  the 
whole  matter  and  would  presently  make  pub 
lic  his  programme.  In  the  autumn  the  Sec 
retary  of  the  Navy  announced  the  appointment 
of  a  " Naval  Consulting  Board"  upon  which 
men  of  the  highest  technical  attainments  had 


The  Darkening  of  Counsel     163 

been  placed  on  recommendations  by  the  scien 
tific  and  technical  associations  of  the  country. 
The  opinion  prevailed  quite  generally  that  this 
Board,  composed  as  it  was  of  such  eminent 
experts,  was  to  give  counsel  to  the  Administra 
tion  on  matters  of  national  defence,  and  the 
existence  of  such  a  Board  no  doubt  quieted  the 
country  through  dissemination  of  the  belief 
that  those  fundamental  questions  of  national 
defence  and  national  policy  in  respect  to  the 
war  were  being  considered  by  the  Board.  As 
a  matter  of  fact  it  was  announced  at  the  initial 
meeting  of  the  Board  that  it  was  not  to  con 
cern  itself  with  such  questions  as  the  size  of 
the  navy,  etc. — that  is,  with  preparedness 
questions — but  that  its  recommendations  were 
to  be  "technical  merely." 

During  President  Roosevelt's  administra 
tion,  the  United  States  Navy  had  been  rated 
second  in  strength  among  the  navies  of  the 
world;  under  President  Taft  the  navy  fell  to 
the  third  place ;  and  under  President  Wilson  to 
the  fourth  rank.  It  was  Mr.  Henry  A.  Wise 
Wood  who  was  the  first  to  actively  urge  before 
the  country  the  restoration  of  our  navy  to  its 


1 64  Leonard  Wood 

former  position  of  relative  strength.  The 
matter  was  taken  up  in  conference  with  Colo 
nel  Roosevelt,  who  entirely  approved  of  Mr. 
Wise  Wood* s  programme  and  gave  him  a  strong 
letter  of  endorsement  to  be  used  upon  a  suit 
able  occasion. 

With  the  assembling  of  Congress  in  Novem 
ber,  1915,  it  was  inevitable  that  the  subject 
of  national  defence  should  come  up  and  the 
recommendations  of  the  experts,  which  had 
been  kept  secret  despite  the  appeals  of  the 
defence  societies,  must  now  be  made  public. 
Early  in  November  the  President  at  the  an 
niversary  celebration  of  the  New  York  Man 
hattan  Club  first  announced  his  programme 
of  defence.  "No  thoughtful  man/'  he  said, 
"feels  any  panic  haste  in  this  matter.  The 
country  is  not  threatened  from  any  quarter." 
Of  his  programme  of  defence  he  said,  "In  it 
there  is  no  pride  of  opinion.  It  represents  the 
best  professional  and  expert  opinion  of  the 
country. " 

The  President's  plan  for  enlargement  of  the 
naval  establishment  called  for  the  expenditure 
of  only  a  hundred  million  dollars  a  year;  but 


The  Darkening  of  Counsel     165 

this  was  put  before  the  public  as  a  five-year 
programme  and  played  up  in  the  press  in 
consequence  as  a  demand  for  a  half -billion 
dollars.  This  programme  would  have  left 
our  navy  even  at  the  end  of  the  five-year 
period  in  its  same  position  relative  to  Ger 
many.  The  banquet  in  commemoration  of 
the  Manhattan  Club  at  which  the  President 
presented  his  programme  was  attended  by 
the  heads  of  the  various  defence  societies, 
who  listened  with  hopes  again  dashed  by 
this  inadequate  preparedness  programme 
masked  in  high-sounding  phrases.  Said  the 
President : 

"In  doing  this  I  have  tried  to  purge  my 
heart  of  all  personal  and  selfish  motives. 
For  the  time  being  I  speak  as  the  trustee 
and  guardian  of  a  nation's  rights,  charged 
with  the  duty  of  speaking  for  that  nation 
in  matters  involving  her  sovereignty' — a 
nation  too  big  and  generous  to  be  exacting 
and  yet  courageous  enough  to  defend  its 
rights  and  the  liberties  of  its  people  where- 
ever  assailed  or  invaded. " 


1 66  Leonard  Wood 

When  the  President's  preparedness  scheme 
was  thus  made  public,  the  defence  societies 
found  themselves  once  more  divided  as  to 
whether  it  was  either  wise  or  expedient  to 
oppose  him  openly  by  bold  attack  upon  these 
inadequate  proposals.  The  chairman  of  the 
Conference  Committee  on  National  Prepared 
ness,  Mr.  Wise  Wood,  left  the  banquet  to 
speak  on  preparedness  before  the  Chamber  of 
Commerce  in  the  city  of  Portland  on  the  fol 
lowing  evening.  Before  leaving  the  banquet 
he  told  Mr.  Garrison,  the  Secretary  of  War, 
that  in  this  address  he  would  make  the  reply 
of  the  Preparedness  Movement  to  the  Presi 
dent's  speech.  Arriving  in  Portland,  he  found 
that  the  President,  Secretary  Garrison,  and 
Secretary  Daniels  had  all  sent  telegrams  to  the 
Chamber  of  Commerce  expressing  their  in 
terest  in  air  defence  (Mr.  Wood  was  President 
of  the  Association  of  Aeronautical  Engineers 
and  an  authority  upon  questions  of  air  de 
fence).  In  his  Portland  address,  Mr.  Wise 
Wood  put  forth  publicly  for  the  first  time  the 
programme  for  re-establishing  the  American 
Navy  in  the  position  of  second  naval  power, 


|U.  &  U. 

General  Wood  and  Secretary  Garrison  at  Dayton,  Ohio,  during 
the  flood 


The  Darkening  of  Counsel     167 

and  he  read  the  endorsement  of  his  plan  by 
ex-President  Roosevelt  in  the  letter  written  at 
Oyster  Bay  a  few  days  before.  In  this  letter 
Colonel  Roosevelt  said  in  part: 

"  I  wish  to  express  my  hearty  concurrence 
in  the  position  you  have  taken  upon  national 
preparedness. " 

After  repeating  Mr.  Wise  Wood's  statement 
concerning  our  country's  military  and  naval 
obligations,  the  ex-President  continued: 

"And  in  order  to  meet  these  irrevocable 
obligations,  the  nation  should  immediately: 

"Enter  upon  the  construction  of  a  navy 
which  in  size  and  efficiency  shall  be  such 
as  speedily  to  restore  it  to  the  position  it 
formerly  held,  of  second  naval  power  in  the 
world;  and  amplify  its  military  strength  so 
as  to  provide  an  adequate  mobile  army  as 
an  incident  to  providing  the  means  for  suc 
cessfully  and  immediately  resisting  any  ex 
pedition  that  any  one  of  the  great  military 
nations  may  be  capable  of  putting  on  our 
shores. 


1 68  Leonard  Wood 

"Our  people  are  under  obligations  to  you 
for  having  so  clearly  placed  before  them 
their  immediate  duty.  .  .  .  The  instant 
needs,  however,  are  two.  First,  we  should 
at  once  enter  upon  a  comprehensive  plan  of 
naval  construction  which  shall  at  the  earliest 
possible  moment  make  us  the  second  naval 
power  of  the  world.  Second,  we  must  in 
sist  upon  the  publication  by  the  Govern 
ment  of  the  plans  of  the  General  Staff  of  the 
army,  so  that  the  people  may  know  what 
their  military  experts  regard  as  the  vital 
military  needs  of  the  Republic." 

Of  his  programme  of  defence  the  President 
had  said,  "In  it  there  is  no  pride  of  opinion. 
It  represents  the  best  professional  and  expert 
opinion  of  the  country/'  Now  it  was  true 
that  the  President's  programme  was  based  on 
reports  of  the  army  and  navy  experts,  but 
in  so  far  at  least  as  the  naval  part  of  this  pro 
gramme  was  concerned,  it  was  based  not  on 
the  original  report  of  the  General  Board  of 
the  navy  as  to  what  they  considered  necessary, 
but  upon  a  substitute  report  as  to  how  to 


The  Darkening  of  Counsel     169 

spend  the  sum  of  $100,000,000,  which  was  all 
that  the  President  was  willing  to  recommend ; 
and,  moreover  he  had  still  further  pared  down 
this  pared-down  report.  His  statement  to  the 
people  that  his  programme  represented  the 
"best  professional  and  expert  opinion  of  the 
country"  can  therefore  hardly  be  regarded  as 
correctly  setting  forth  the  facts.  The  reports  of 
the  Secretaries  of  War  and  Navy  were  shortly 
after  given  to  the  press,  but  the  truth  con 
cerning  the  naval  programme  of  the  experts 
was  not  made  known  until  Mr.  Henry  A.  Wise 
Wood  had  resigned  from  the  Consulting  Board 
of  the  navy  and  in  so  doing  had  made  public 
a  caustic  letter  to  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy. 
This  letter  of  Mr.  Wood  had  the  effect  of  forc 
ing  the  publication  of  the  original  report  of 
the  General  Board.  It  was  then  learned  that 
whereas  the  General  Board  in  its  original 
report  of  July  3oth  had  called  for  the  laying 
down  in  the  first  year  of  construction  of  four 
dreadnaughts  and  four  battle-cruisers,  the 
pared-down  report  to  a  sum  stipulated  by  the 
President  and  submitted  October  I2th,  re 
duced  the  number  of  battle-cruisers  to  two 


170  Leonard  Wood 

with  large  reductions  also  in  the  auxiliary 
vessels  in  the  programme;  and  that  Mr.  Wil 
son's  programme,  actually  cut  the  original 
programme  in  half  and  called  for  but  two  dread- 
naughts  and  two  battle- cruisers,  instead  of  four 
each,  the  number  declared  to  be  absolutely  neces 
sary  by  Admiral  Dewey  and  his  General  Board. 

To  their  honor  be  it  said  that  several  naval 
officers  of  the  highest  rank  did  not  hesitate  to 
risk  their  positions  by  telling  the  truth  con 
cerning  the  vital  defects  of  the  naval  establish 
ment,  though  they  were  in  some  cases  punished 
for  doing  so.  Admiral  Fiske,  in  an  official 
letter  to  the  Secretary,  not  only  declared  the 
navy  unprepared  but  asserted  that  five  years 
would  be  necessary  to  get  it  ready.  Admiral 
Fletcher,  in  a  letter  to  the  House  Committee  on 
Naval  Affairs,  called  attention  to  "  an  alarming 
shortage  of  officers  and  men"  in  his  own  (the 
Atlantic)  fleet,  on  which  our  defence  would 
chiefly  be  based — a  shortage  of  5219  men  and 
339  officers  on  the  2 1  ships  under  his  command. 
Admiral  Winslow  and  Commander  Stirling 
supported  these  statements  by  other  data. 

The  Pacifist  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  Jose- 


The  Darkening  of  Counsel 


phus  Daniels,  made  false  statements  con 
cerning  the  condition  of  the  navy,  and  when 
called  before  the  Naval  Committee  of  Con 
gress  said,  "We  should  go  on  just  as  if  there 
were  no  war.  We  have  enough  men  in  the 
navy."  When  the  sentence  in  the  report  of 
the  Navy  General  Board  to  the  effect  "that 
the  want  of  a  trained  personnel  is  of  even  more 
serious  importance  than  construction"  was 
read  to  him  in  Committee,  Mr.  Daniels  re 
torted,  "We  have  a  trained  personnel  great 
enough  to  man  every  ship  in  use.  I  do  not 
think  the  Board  would  have  put  that  in  if 
they  had  known  the  facts."  —  The  Board  was 
composed  of  the  best  naval  experts  in  the 
service  under  the  chairmanship  of  Admiral 
Dewey. 

"Have  we  a  fleet  sufficient  to  defend  both 
coasts?"  asked  Representative  Stevens  of  Cali 
fornia.  "Yes,  sir,  altogether  sufficient  to  de 
fend  both  coasts,"  replied  the  Secretary, 

Is  it  any  wonder  that  Henry  Breckenridge, 
who  until  he  resigned  with  his  chief,  was  the 
Assistant  Secretary  of  War,  should  have 
declared  that  Mr.  Daniels  was  the  one  man 


172  Leonard  Wood 

who  more  than  any  other  had  stood  in  the 
way  of  the  preparation  of  the  American  navy 
for  war? 

In  his  report  containing  his  programme  for 
naval  enlargement,  Secretary  Daniels  had  given 
out  as  a  reason  for  not  advocating  a  larger 
naval  programme,  that  the  one  adopted  was 
the  largest  that  could  possibly  be  constructed 
in  the  yards  of  the  country.  By  showing  up 
the  falsity  of  this  statement,  Mr.  Wise  Wood 
was  able  to  induce  the  House  Committee  on 
Naval  Affairs  to  recommend  a  considerably 
enlarged  programme.  To  accomplish  this,  how 
ever,  it  had  first  been  necessary  to  force  the 
publication  of  the  programme  advocated  by 
the  General  Board  of  the  navy,  and  when  this 
had  been  done  in  the  manner  already  explained, 
Mr.  Wise  Wood  went  to  Charles  K.  Schwab  of 
the  Bethlehem  Steel  Corporation  and  put  to 
him  the  question  whether  if  Congress  were 
ready  to  appropriate  the  necessary  funds  the 
country  would  be  able  to  construct  all  the 
ships  included  in  it.  Mr.  Schwab's  reply  was 
that  not  only  could  the  country  do  this,  but 
that  he  alone  would  undertake  to  deliver  all  the 


The  Darkening  of  Counsel     i?3 

ships  advocated  in  the  original  programme  of  the 
General  Board  even  to  the  table  service.  Mr. 
Wise  Wood  then  went  to  the  Massachusetts 
member  of  the  House  Naval  Affairs  Commit 
tee  and  reported  the  interview  to  him.  This 
member  asked  to  be  connected  by  telephone 
with  Mr.  Schwab,  who  confirmed  the  inter 
view,  and  as  a  consequence  the  House  pro 
gramme  was  greatly  enlarged  over  that  ad 
vocated  by  the  Administration. 


CHAPTER  VII 

"  BROOMSTICK    PREPAREDNESS  ' ' 

Bhips  voted  too  late  to  be  of  use  in  war — The  President  opposes 
the  army  experts — Wood  condemns  the  Hay  Bill — Secretary 
Garrison  replaced  by  the  pacifist  Baker — "Joker"  in  Hay 
Bill  to  rob  Wood  of  Medal  of  Honor — Henry  Ford's  attack  on 
the  Navy  League — Privileged  libel  on  a  stupendous  scale — 
The  Navy  League  sues  Mr.  Ford  and  wins — Mr.  Wilson 
swings  round  the  circle  to  advocate  mild  preparedness — 
"Weasel"  addresses — The  crisis  of  the  Republican  Conven 
tion  of  1916 — Roosevelt  refuses  to  divide  his  party — Wood 
asks  Military  Affairs  Committee  for  army  of  four  millions — 
Shows  woeful  lack  of  all  needed  war  equipment — The  Presi 
dent  falters  over  the  armed  ship  measure — We  drift  into  war 
— Our  explanation  is  altruism — Mr.  Wilson  makes  his  physi 
cian  a  Rear  Admiral  in  the  Navy — Wood  demoted  and  the 
attempt  made  to  shelve  him. 

THE  Navy  Bill  was  not  enacted  into  law 
until  late  in  the  summer  of  1916.  For  reasons 
already  explained,  the  minority  of  the  House 
Naval  Committee  (Republican)  in  their  rec 
ommendations  somewhat  increased  the  ori 
ginal  estimates  of  the  General  Board,  and 
even  the  majority  of  the  committee  (Demo 
cratic)  somewhat  increased  the  estimates  of 


"Broomstick  Preparedness"    ^75 

President  Wilson.  Of  all  programmes  for 
naval  expansion,  the  President's  was  much 
the  smallest  and,  as  already  stated,  only  half 
that  which  was  declared  to  be  necessary  by 
the  most  competent  board  of  naval  experts 
in  the  country. 

In  the  Senate,  the  Navy  Bill  as  passed  by  the 
House  was  modified  in  the  direction  of  large 
increases,  and,  after  long  delays  in  Congress, 
Mr.  Wilson's  opposition  was  withdrawn ;  where 
upon  the  bill  promptly  passed  in  a  form 
providing  for  a  three-year  building  programme 
to  include  ten  dreadnaughts  and  six  battle- 
cruisers.  It  is  well  to  enforce  the  lesson  that 
though  our  official  entry  into  the  war  did  not 
come  until  eight  months  after  the  bill  was 
signed,  and  though  the  war  continued  for 
another  nineteen  months,  none  of  the  capital 
ships  provided  in  this  belated  measure  had 
been  constructed  when  hostilities  terminated 
with  the  signing  of  the  armistice.  The  reason 
is  clear  enough.  Steel  and  workmen  were 
alike  in  demand  for  other  purposes,  and  on  this 
account  could  not  be  spared — a  contingency 
of  the  kind  that  had  been  predicted  by 


i76  Leonard  Wood 

the  advocates  of  preparedness.  As  Theodore 
Roosevelt  said  eleven  years  ago,  "When 
once  war  has  broken  out  it  is  too  late  to  do 
anything/' 

In  army  legislation,  the  Administration 
likewise  opposed  the  recommendations  of  the 
trained  experts,  in  this  case  of  the  Army 
General  Staff;  but  it  supported  instead  the 
vicious  plan  of  the  adjutant  generals  of  the 
National  Guard,  a  plan  which  called  for  a  so- 
called  "  f ederalization  "  of  the  militia,  with  a 
dual  system  of  control  by  States  and  Federal 
authorities.  General  Wood  used  his  influence 
to  defeat  this  vicious  legislation.  As  he 
expressed  it: 

"Such  weapons  as  the  Federal  Govern 
ment  has  must  be  its  weapons  and  not  the 
weapons  of  any  State  nor  under  even  a 
limited  degree  of  State  control.  Those  who 
know  the  State  militia  and  understand  and 
appreciate  the  handicaps  under  which  it 
labors,  realize  that  it  has  done  all  that  could 
be  expected  under  a  fatally  defective  system, 
a  system  which  makes  a  high  degree  of  effi- 


"Broomstick  Preparedness"     177 

ciency  impossible.  .  .  .  The  regular  army 
to-day  put  under  administrative  control  of 
forty-eight  different  governors  would  soon 
cease  to  be  a  dependable  force.  The  militia 
should  be  transferred  absolutely  to  Federal 
control.  ...  In  time  of  emergency  we 
want  men  and  not  lawsuits.  We  want  a 
weapon  that  is  certain  and  dependable. 
In  my  opinion,  not  less  than  ninety  per  cent, 
and  perhaps  more  of  the  personnel  of  the 
militia  want  to  establish  such  a  condition 
as  I  have  outlined  above. " 

The  President's  failure  to  support  the  army 
experts  on  the  Army  Bill  brought  about  the 
resignation  of  Mr.  Garrison,  the  Secretary  of 
War,  and  with  him  went  the  excellent  As 
sistant  Secretary,  Mr.  Henry  Breckenridge. 
The  place  of  Mr.  Garrison  was  promptly  filled 
by  Newton  D.  Baker,  who  shortly  before  had 
written  to  the  National  Security  League  that 
he  "was  a  pacifist  and  was  opposed  to  the 
agitation  for  preparedness." 

For  his  attitude  in  opposing  the  Hay  Bill, 
the  unwisdom  of  whose  provisions  was  soon 


Leonard  Wood 


to  be  demonstrated,  General  Wood  was  to  be 
punished  by  robbing  him  of  his  Medal  of 
Honor  won  in  the  campaign  against  Apache 
Indians  under  Geronimo.  This  could  not,  how 
ever,  be  accomplished  publicly.  A  "joker" 
was  introduced  into  the  bill,  but  for  the  success 
of  jokers,  which  are  generally  introduced 
during  a  late  stage  of  conference,  it  is  neces 
sary  that  they  slip  through  under  such  vague 
phrasing  that  their  true  character  does  not 
appear,  or  at  least  is  not  made  public.  Pub 
licity  in  this  case  effectually  disposed  of  those 
clauses  of  the  bill  which  expressed  such  a  mean- 
spirited  hostility  to  an  outspoken  public 
servant. 

With  the  advent  of  the  World  War  the  forces 
of  pacifism  gained  in  Henry  Ford,  the  multi 
millionaire  automobile  manufacturer,  a  re 
cruit  whose  immense  fortune  made  of  him  a 
powerful  asset.  He  devised  a  clever  way  of 
attacking  the  Navy  League  in  libellous  charges 
concerning  its  preparedness  efforts  and  one 
which  appeared  to  be  free  from  the  risk  that 
retribution  would  be  exacted  by  legal  process. 
The  speeches  of  members  of  Congress  being 


"Broomstick  Preparedness"     179 

privileged,  Mr.  Ford  printed  as  full-page  ad 
vertisements  in  newspapers  and  magazines 
throughout  the  country  extracts  from  two 
violent  anti-preparedness  speeches  by  Con 
gressman  Tavenner  of  Illinois.  These  speeches 
charged,  among  other  things,  that  the  Navy 
League  was  organized  by  "war  traffickers " 
for  profit.  The  Navy  League  at  once  pub 
lished  a  refutation  of  these  charges  and  of 
fered  Mr.  Ford  every  opportunity  to  inspect 
all  their  minutes  and  books.  This  he  refused 
to  do,  but  in  addition  to  the  paid  advertise 
ments,  which  reached  many  millions  of  readers, 
he  had  two  million  copies  of  the  libellous 
charges  printed  by  the  Government  printer  at 
Mr.  Ford's  expense  (as  is  required  by  law)  and 
had  these  mailed  under  Government  franks, 
thus  involving  a  saving  to  him  of  some 
$20,000. 

Since  the  speech  of  the  Congressman  was 
privileged,  the  Navy  League  was  without  re 
dress  from  this  public  defamation  unparal 
leled  for  magnitude  in  the  history  of  the  country 
and  of  the  world.  By  a  strange  accident, 
however,  the  opportunity  of  reaching  Mr. 


i8o  Leonard  Wood 

Ford  legally  was  found.  It  happened  that  on 
May  ist  the  release  by  him  of  one  of  his  full- 
page  advertisements  took  place  two  days 
before  the  same  speech  appeared  in  the 
Congressional  Record.  The  Navy  League 
thereupon  promptly  brought  suit  for  libel  for 
$100,000.  Confronted  with  his  charges,  Mr. 
Ford  was  unable  to  prove  them  and  took 
refuge  behind  the  lame  excuse  that  he  had 
believed  them  to  be  true.  The  Supreme  Court 
of  the  District  of  Columbia  thereupon  sus 
tained  the  Navy  League  in  its  demurrer. 

Mr.  Ford  had  in  September,  1915,  con 
tributed  a  million  dollars  to  defeat  prepared 
ness,  and  later  he  raised  his  contribution  for 
peace  propaganda  to  ten  million  dollars.  He 
opposed  the  loan  raised  in  the  United  States 
for  the  Allies  and  threatened,  according  to 
report,  to  withdraw  his  deposit  from  any 
banks  that  contributed  to  it.  He  circularized 
Congress  against  patriotic  songs,  preparedness 
plays,  and  munition  workers.  In  an  interview 
with  Mr.  Henry  A.  Wise  Wood  he  excused  the 
sinking  of  the  Lusitania.  He  had  well-known 
German  agents  among  his  advisers  and  he 


"Broomstick  Preparedness"     181 

decried  patriotism  and  reverence  for  the  flag. 
In  May,  1916,  when  the  Presidential  cam 
paign  was  on,  the  Democratic  National  Head 
quarters  announced  that  Mr.  Ford  would 
print  advertisements  in  five  hundred  news 
papers  in  order  to  advance  Mr.  Wilson's 
campaign  for  re-election  upon  the  ground  that 
he  had  "kept  us  out  of  war." 

The  fight  for  preparedness  was  kept  up  by 
the  defence  societies  in  the  face  of  all  these 
attacks  and  evidences  of  opposition,  and  the 
spirit  of  the  country  was  steadily  rising  to  the 
struggle  that  lay  before  it.  In  the  winter  of 
1915-16,  the  President  in  public  utterances 
came  out  mildly  in  favor  of  preparing  the 
national  defence,  but  his  utterances  were  not 
crystallized  into  action  and  they  lacked  the 
ring  of  conviction.  The  presidential  election 
was  to  take  place  in  November,  1916,  and  at 
the  end  of  the  preceding  January,  Mr.  Wilson 
made  a  swing  around  the  circle  to  deliver 
speeches;  but,  as  in  his  diplomatic  notes,  the 
statements  of  one  address  were  sometimes 
found  to  be  nullified  by  a  speech  which  would 
be  made  on  the  following  day. 


1 82  Leonard  Wood 

January  29th  at  Pittsburgh,  the  President 
said: 

"  When  you  know  that  there  are  combus 
tible  materials  in  the  life  of  the  world  and 
in  your  own  national  life,  and  that  the  sky 
is  full  of  floating  sparks  from  a  great  con 
flagration,  are  you  going  to  sit  down  and 
say  it  will  be  time  when  the  fire  begins  to  do 
something  about  it?  I  do  not  believe  that 
the  fire  is  going  to  begin,  but  I  would  be 
surer  of  it  if  we  were  ready  for  the  fire. " 

At  St.  Louis  he  said  to  a  vast  throng: 

"I  am  anxious,  therefore,  my  fellow- 
citizens,  that  you  should  look  at  the  hot 
stuff  of  war  before  you  touch  it;  that  you 
should  be  cool;  that  you  should  apply  your 
hard  business  sense  to  the  proposition. 
Shall  we  be  caught  unawares  and  do  a 
scientific  job  like  Tyros  and  Ignoramuses? 
Or  shall  we  be  ready?  Shall  we  know  how 
to  do  it;  shall  we  do  it  to  the  Queen's  taste? 
I  know  what  the  answer  of  America  is,  but 


"Broomstick  Preparedness "    183 

I  want  it  to  be  unmistakably  uttered,  and 
I  want  it  to  be  uttered  now.  Because, 
speaking  with  all  solemnity,  I  assure  you 
that  there  is  not  a  day  to  be  lost;  not, 
understand  me,  because  of  any  new  or 
specially  critical  matter,  but  because  I  can 
not  tell  twenty -four  hours  at  a  time  whether 
there  is  going  to  be  trouble  or  not.  .  .  . 

"This  month  should  not  go  by  without 
something  decisive  done  by  the  people  of  the 
United  States  by  way  of  preparation  of  the 
arms  of  self -vindication  and  defence.  My 
heart  burns  within  me,  my  fellow-citizens, 
when  I  think  of  the  importance  of  this 
matter  and  of  all  that  is  involved. " 

His  next  sentences  appear  to  have  been 
directed  especially  at  General  Wood  and 
Colonel  Roosevelt: 

"I  am  sorry  that  there  should  be  anybody 
in  the  United  States  who  goes  about  crying 
out  for  war.  There  are  such  men,  but  they 
are  irresponsible  men,  who  do  a  great  deal 
of  talking,  and  they  are  appealing  to  some 


1 84  Leonard  Wood 

of   the   most   fundamental   and    dangerous 
passions  of  the  human  heart. " 

At  Des  Moines  on  February  1st  he  said: 

'There  are  actually  men  in  America  who 
are  preaching  war,  who  are  preaching  the 
duty  of  the  United  States  to  do  what  it 
never  would  before,  seek  entanglement  in 
the  controversies  which  have  arisen  on  the 
other  side  of  the  water — abandon  its  habit 
ual  and  traditional  policy  and  deliberately 
engage  in  the  conflict  which  is  now  engulfing 
the  rest  of  the  world.  I  do  not  know  what 
the  standards  of  citizenship  of  these  gentle 
men  may  be.  I  only  know  that  I  for  one 
cannot  subscribe  to  those  standards." 

Some  two  months  after  the  return  of  Mr. 
Wilson  from  his  speaking  tour,  General  Wood 
addressed  the  Chamber  of  Commerce  of  the 
State  of  New  York  on  "  Preparedness  for 
National  Defence,"  in  which  address  he  said, 
'The  time  has  come  not  only  for  serious 
thought;  the  time  has  come  to  do  something.  " 


"  Broomstick  Preparedness "     185 

The  real  crisis  of  the  nation  came  with  the 
conventions  of  the  Republican  and  Progressive 
parties  held  in  Chicago  in  June,  1916.  The 
Democratic  party  had  already  become  com 
mitted  to  Woodrow  Wilson  with  his  policy  of 
pacifism  and  "watchful  waiting"  as  a  sub 
stitute  for  the  facing  of  issues.  The  split 
made  in  the  Republican  party  in  1912  had 
not  been  healed,  and  resentment  of  the  Pro 
gressives  was  still  strong  over  the  ruthless 
workings  of  the  Republican  steam  roller  as  it 
had  operated  on  that  occasion.  The  prepared 
ness  men  of  all  shades  were  in  consequence 
divided  between  allegiance  to  Mr.  Roosevelt, 
who  of  the  men  that  had  been  in  political  life 
was  the  most  outspoken  advocate  of  pre 
paredness,  and  a  group  of  others  who  repre 
sented  the  "old  guard"  on  pre-war  issues  and 
were  generally  in  alignment  with  the  elements 
that  had  defeated  Roosevelt  in  the  convention 
of  1912.  Colonel  Roosevelt  doubted  his 
ability  to  secure  the  nomination  of  the  Re 
publican  wing  of  the  party  and  notified  Gen 
eral  Wood  of  his  intention  to  throw  his 
influence  to  him  at  the  proper  moment. 


1 86  Leonard  Wood 

When  the  "old  guard"  had  triumphed  over 
the  Roosevelt  forces  in  the  Republican  con 
vention  and  had  nominated  Justice  Hughes, 
the  opportunity  had  been  lost  to  bring  an 
early  victory  in  Europe  by  facing  our  re 
sponsibilities  as  a  nation  and  at  once  making 
the  preparations  which  wise  foresight  would 
have  undertaken  two  years  earlier.  Roosevelt, 
nominated  by  the  Progressive  convention, 
declined  to  be  a  wedge  dividing  his  party,  threw 
his  support  to  Justice  Hughes,  and  endeavored 
to  carry  the  Progressive  party  with  him.  The 
Republican  candidate  elected  to  "play  safe" 
on  most  really  vital  issues,  and  in  so  doing  he 
lost  the  confidence  of  a  large  element  in  his 
own  party.  He  was  also  so  badly  advised  as 
to  antagonize  the  Progressive  wing  and  to  give 
affront  to  the  strong  leader  of  the  Progressive 
group  in  California.  Inasmuch  as  Governor 
Johnson  held  the  destinies  of  California  in  his 
hand,  that  State  returned  him  by  a  large 
majority  but  threw  to  Wilson  its  thirteen 
electoral  votes  for  President,  a  number  alone 
sufficient,  as  was  proved,  to  have  elected  the 
Republican  candidate  had  they  gone  to  him. 


"Broomstick  Preparedness "     187 

Thus  a  second  time  politics  had  triumphed 
over  patriotism  at  a  Chicago  convention  of 
the  dominant  party,  and  the  prolongation  of 
the  war  by  at  least  a  year  with  its  frightful 
toll  of  life  and  treasure  was  the  price  exacted. 
It  was  the  slogan,  "He  kept  us  out  of  war," 
which  made  Woodrow  Wilson  President  in  a 
second  successful  campaign. 

But  the  preparedness  men,  nothing  daunted, 
kept  up  the  fight  with  no  diminution  of  ardor. 
On  December  i8th,  and  again  in  January, 
1917,  General  Wood  appeared  •  before  the 
Senate  Sub-Committee  on  Military  Affairs 
sitting  with  the  House  Committee  on  Military 
Affairs  and  advocated  universal  military 
training.  In  the  first  of  these  hearings,  he 
declared  emphatically: 

"In  conclusion,  I  wish  to  emphasize  the 
necessity  of  prompt  preparedness  of  an 
adequate  force  of  trained  men,  with  the 
necessary  arms,  equipment,  and  supplies 
for  4,000,000  men.  In  my  opinion  there  is 
nothing  of  more  vital  importance  than  that 
we  should  take  measures  to  this  end  and 


1 88  Leonard  Wood 

take  them  immediately.  We  are  absolutely 
unprepared  in  artillery  guns  and  ammuni 
tion  for  war  and  will  continue  to  be  so  for 
many  years  under  present  rate  of  progress. 
There  is  a  more  or  less  general  misconcep 
tion  of  the  idea  of  the  universal  military 
training.  Many  appear  to  believe  that  it 
means  large  numbers  of  men  standing  in 
uniform — an  enormous  standing  army.  It 
means  quite  the  reverse.  It  means  the 
maximum  number  of  men  trained  so  that 
they  may  be  efficient  soldiers  if  needed.  Its 
effect  when  the  system  is  in  full  operation 
will  be  a  relatively  small  force  under  arms, 
but  an  enormou's  force  of  men  available  in 
case  of  necessity — men  who  are  following 
their  normal  occupations  but  with  the 
necessary  training  to  be  efficient  soldiers  if 
needed." 

Late  in  February,  as  he  was  returning  from 
an  inspection  trip,  General  Wood  stopped  off 
in  Ann  Arbor  and  spoke  to  an  audience  of 
five  thousand  students,  urging  upon  them  the 
necessity  for  immediately  facing  the  great 


"Broomstick  Preparedness"    189 

problem  of  getting  the  country  ready  for  war. 
"All  the  mobile  army  of  the  United  States," 
he  said,  "can  be  put  into  the  Yale  Bowl  and 
every  man  find  a  seat.  Not  one  man  in  fifty 
of  our  citizens  can  use  a  high-power  rifle'*; 
and  he  urged  the  adoption  of  a  modified  Swiss 
system  of  universal  military  training,  saying 
that  this  would  be  "insurance  against  war." 
Numbers  alone  did  not  count.  "When  was  a 
wolf  ever  afraid  of  the  size  of  a  flock  of  sheep?  " 
Gold  in  itself  was  a  poor  weapon;  it  needed  to 
be  stiffened  with  iron.  These  were  some  of  the 
striking  bolts  from  his  fighting  spirit. 

In  an  address  before  the  students  of  Stevens 
Institute  at  Hoboken  delivered  March  28, 
1917,  General  Wood  startled  his  hearers  by 
repeating  some  of  the  statements  which  he  had 
felt  compelled  to  make  before  the  Military 
Affairs  Committees.  He  put  these  statements 
in  the  form  of  startling  questions.  He  showed 
that  modern  guns  have  their  maximum  range 
at  near  forty-five  degrees*  elevation,  but  that 
our  best  and  most  modern  coast  defence  guns, 
because  of  their  mounting  on  defective  gun 
carriages,  could  be  elevated  only  ten  degrees; 


i9°  Leonard  Wood 

and  that  they  had  further  the  very  serious 
handicap  of  a  quite  limited  arc  of  fire;  that  the 
modern  guns  likely  to  be  brought  against 
them  have  a  calibre  exceeding  by  four  inches 
that  of  our  largest  gun;  that  our  one  sixteen- 
inch  gun,  once  the  "biggest  in  the  world," 
though  designed  for  the  defence  of  New  York 
Harbor  and  though  proof -fired  thirteen  years 
before,  had  not  yet  been  mounted;  that  we 
had  no  heavy  railroad  artillery,  indeed  none 
at  all  with  the  exception  of  one  4. 7-inch  gun 
and  that  on  an  experimental  carriage;  that 
we  had  no  single  modern  airplane  engine;  no 
modern  high-speed  scouting  aeroplane;  that  at 
the  time  of  the  Mexican  troubles  we  had  been 
compelled  to  buy  350  British  machine  guns, 
using  British  ammunition,  for  the  reason  that 
we  had  no  machine  guns  of  our  own;  etc. 
The  General  then  continued:  "Every  foreign 
ambassador  knows  all  about  our  guns. "  And 
further: 

"Now  all  these  questions  relate  to  pre 
paredness.  They  relate  to  preparedness 
which  cannot  be  bought  or  hurried  very 


"Broomstick  Preparedness" 


greatly.  It  means  organized  preparedness; 
things  that  are  done  in  time  of  peace.  I 
have  just  been  giving  you  a  few  points.  I 
could  go  on  and  greatly  amplify  this  list  of 
questions,  and  they  would  all,  if  they  were 
honestly  answered,  be  answered:  'We  have 
done  nothing,  practically  nothing.'  ' 

Meanwhile,  encouraged  by  the  American 
Government's  failure  to  follow  up  its  words  by 
acts,  the  ruthless  actions  of  the  German  Gov 
ernment  continued  until  by  April  I,  1917, 
226  American  lives  had  been  sacrificed,  not 
including  twenty-four  children  born  of  foreign 
parents  on  American  soil.  Eventually,  Ameri 
can  vessels  were  blockaded  by  the  Germans  in 
our  own  ports,  yet  the  President  still  faltered 
about  arming  our  ships  for  defence.  When  the 
armed  ship  measure  had  finally  been  passed 
with  only  a  twentieth  of  the  people's  repre 
sentatives  in  opposition,  the  President  dis 
covered  an  antiquated  law  which  on  a  strict 
construction  he  believed  might  stand  in  the 
way  of  action.  Said  Alexander  Hamilton: 
"The  sacred  rights  of  man  are  not  to  be 


Leonard  Wood 


searched  for  in  old  documents  and  musty 
records.  They  are  written  as  with  a  sunbeam 
in  the  whole  volume  of  human  nature  by  the 
hand  of  divinity  itself  and  can  never  be  erased 
by  mortal  power.  " 

And  so  the  nation  drifted,  but  with  the 
spirit  of  the  country  more  and  more  aroused, 
until  on  April  2,  1917,  the  President  appeared 
before  the  joint  houses  of  Congress,  and  asked 
for  a  declaration  of  war.  This  transformation 
was  the  more  remarkable  by  reason  of  the  fact 
that  he  soon  made  clear  we  were  to  enter  the 
war  not  because  Germany  had  invaded  our 
rights  and  murdered  our  citizens  until  the 
condition  had  long  become  intolerable,  but 
upon  the  high  altruistic  ground  of  saving 
others  while  not  interested  for  ourselves.  Yet, 
strangely  enough,  the  declaration  of  war  itself 
had  stated  that,  "the  Imperial  German  Gov 
ernment  has  committed  repeated  acts  of  war 
against  the  Government  and  the  people  of 
the  United  States  of  America."  And  the 
official  explanation  by  the  Administration  of 
our  intervention  on  altruistic  motives  has  been 
taken  up  and  echoed  by  a  noisy  claque  until 


" Broomstick  Preparedness"     193 

large  numbers  of  our  people  have  become 
confused.  Were  this  the  reason,  we  should 
have  intervened  after  the  rape  of  Belgium  and 
northern  France — not  in  April,  1918,  after  a 
lapse  of  two  and  a  half  years,  during  which 
time  civilization  had  more  than  once  been 
near  annihilation,  while  we  stood  by  as 
" innocent  bystanders"  shielded  by  the  demo 
cratic  armies  of  the  Allies.  Since  it  was  now 
dangerous  to  oppose  the  war,  the  pacifist 
element  executed  a  peculiar  somersault  setting 
up  the  cry,  "We  are  for  this  war  in  order  to 
end  all  wars,"  a  natural  prelude  to  the  later 
craze  for  internationalism  which  is  now  being 
engineered  from  the  same  sources. 

On  April  6th,  by  declaration  of  Congress, 
we  found  ourselves  not  only  at  war — as  we 
had  been  for  some  months — but  admitting 
that  a  state  of  war  already  existed  by  virtue 
of  Germany's  acts.  Two  months  later  Secre 
tary  Baker  issued  an  official  bulletin  (Official 
War  Bulletin  of  June  7,  1917)  in  which  he 
admitted  the  great  disorder  and  confusion  of 
getting  things  started  in  his  department  after 
the  declaration  of  war,  but  added,  "It  is  a 
13 


194  Leonard  Wood 

happy  confusion.  I  delight  in  the  fact  that 
when  we  entered  this  war  we  were  not  like  our 
adversary  ready  for  it,  anxious  for  it,  prepared 
for  it,  and  inviting  it.  Accustomed  to  peace, 
we  were  not  ready. "  In  his  next  annual 
message  the  President  declared,  ''We  made  no 
preparation  for  such  a  contingency.  We  would 
have  been  almost  ashamed  to  prepare  for  it, 
as  if  we  were  suspicious  of  ourselves  and  of  our 
own  comrades  and  neighbors. "  Mr.  George 
Creel,  head  of  the  official  press  bureau,  had 
also  declared  to  an  audience  in  the  city  of 
Washington  that  he  was  proud  that  we  had 
made  no  preparation  for  the  war.  The  re 
sponse  was  not  exactly  what  he  expected,  and 
he  thereupon  contradicted  the  reports  in  the 
press,  explaining  that  no  stenographer  had 
been  present  and  that  he  had  been  incorrectly 
reported.  The  New  York  Times  then  pointed 
out  that  its  stenographer  had  been  present,  and 
the  reports  were  accurate,  whereupon  Mr. 
Creel  relapsed  into  silence. 

Two  significant  acts  of  the  President  were 
taken  at  the  solemn  moment  of  making  our 
entry  into  the  war.  One  of  these  was  fraught 


"Broomstick  Preparedness "     195 

with  grave  consequences,  and  both  tended  to 
lower  at  a  critical  moment  the  morale  of  the 
fighting  arms  of  the  service.  Both  indicated 
but  too  clearly  that  the  path  to  promotion, 
whether  in  the  army  or  navy,  lay  not  in  meri 
torious  service  to  the  country,  but  in  a  com 
plete  subservience  to  the  Commander-in- Chief, 
the  political  head  of  the  nation. 

The  much  discussed  merit  system  had 
shortly  before  been  adopted  in  the  navy  to 
replace  promotion  by  seniority  alone,  a  system 
which  smothered  initiative  and  put  a  premium 
on  strict  adherence  to  service  regulations. 
The  one  great  danger  of  the  new  system,  and 
one  which  was  everywhere  recognized,  was 
that  it  left  the  door  wide  open  to  favoritism 
on  the  part  of  superior  officers.  It  was  hoped, 
however,  that  the  spirit  of  the  service  would 
triumph  over  this  weakness.  Hardly  had  the 
law  come  into  force  when  the  President  of  the 
United  States  elevated  his  personal  physician, 
Lieutenant  Gary  T.  Grayson,  to  the  rank  and 
pay  of  a  rear-admiral  in  the  navy.  Of  this 
appointment  Sea  Power,  the  organ  of  the 
Navy  League,  said  editorially: 


196  Leonard  Wood 

"Let  us  discuss  frankly  the  case  of  Dr. 
Grayson.  He  entered  the  service  in  1904, 
and  after  twelve  years  of  duty,  of  which  per 
haps  the  most  arduous  has  been  carrying 
the  White  House  shawl  strap,  he  is  promoted 
to  the  rank  of  rear  admiral  with  all  the  pay 
and  emoluments  which  go  with  that  honored 
rank  usually  conferred  as  a  reward  for  long 
and  worthy  service. 

' '  He  is  jumped  over  the  heads  of  men  who 
have  done  their  legitimate  duty  on  ships 
and  in  the  fever  fens  of  the  tropics.  He 
passes  over  130  of  these  and  is  given  a  life 
position  with  a  higher  permanent  rank  than 
was  ever  before  reached  by  a  doctor  in  the 
history  of  the  navy  .  .  .  the  whole  thing  is 
an  indecency  that  is  resented  by  the  entire 
navy  and  by  all  decent  men  who  know  the 
facts/' 

Is  there,  perhaps,  a  connection  between  the 
hostility  which  was  thereafter  shown  by  the 
Secretary  of  the  Navy  toward  the  Navy 
League?  By  order  of  the  Secretary,  members 
of  the  League  were  forbidden  entrance  to 


" Broomstick  Preparedness"     19? 

naval  stations,  the  comfort  kits  which  were 
such  a  godsend  to  the  sailors,  were  refused  by 
the  Department. 

Confirmation  by  the  Senate  of  the  appoint 
ment  of  Grayson  was  held  up  and  died  with 
the  outgoing  Congress.  It  was  hoped  that  the 
President  would  see  fit  not  to  present  it  again 
after  the  new  Congress  had  convened,  but  he 
refused  to  recede  even  under  a  fierce  fire  of 
criticism,  and  the  appointment,  more  or  less 
lost  sight  of  amid  the  welter  of  vital  war 
measures  that  soon  supervened,  was  at  last 
confirmed. 

On  March  25th,  scarcely  a  week  before  the 
President  appeared  before  the  joint  houses  of 
Congress  to  ask  for  a  declaration  of  war 
against  Germany,  the  country  was  treated  to 
a  sensation  when  it  was  announced  that  the 
Department  of  the  East,  commanded  by 
General  Wood,  had  been  broken  up  into  three 
parts,  that  the  two  larger  sections  had  already 
been  placed  under  the  command  of  his  juniors, 
and  that  he  had  been  given  the  option  of  exile 
at  Manila  or  Hawaii  or  of  taking  command  of 
the  new  and  relatively  unimportant  South- 


i98  Leonard  Wood 

eastern  Department,  with  headquarters  at 
Charleston,  South  Carolina.  He  chose  the 
latter  post  as  a  storm  of  protest  was  going 
up  at  this  attempt  to  side-track  him.  Senator 
John  W.  Weeks,  a  graduate  of  the  United 
States  Naval  Academy,  a  veteran  of  the 
Spanish-American  War,  and  a  man  thoroughly 
familiar  with  the  military  situation,  gave  out 
in  an  interview: 

uln  due  time  those  responsible  for  weak 
ening  our  military  organization  at  such  a 
time  as  this  will  have  to  explain  the  reason 
for  doing  this.  In  the  meantime  those 
competent  to  judge  will  have  one  opin 
ion,  that  it  is  a  pernicious  piece  of  party 
politics. " 

Ex-President  Taft  afterwards  referred  to 
this  sensational  demotion  of  a  great  American 
soldier  as  follows: 

"The  public  supposed  that  General  Wood 
would  be  consulted  and  given  an  important 
place  in  the  organization  of  the  army. 


"  Broomstick  Preparedness"     199 

Instead  he  was  relieved  from  duty  at  Gover 
nor's  Island  and  sent  to  Charleston.  It  is 
now  known  that  this  was  personally  directed 
by  the  Commander-in- Chief,  probably  for 
the  purpose  of  indicating  displeasure  of 
General  Wood's  criticism  of  the  policy  of 
non-preparation. " 

Speaking  of  Wood's  campaigning  for  defence 
of  the  nation  and  its  punishment,  the  Scientific 
American,  always  well  informed  concerning 
the  army  and  navy,  said  editorially : 

"It  took  no  little  courage  to  do  this  at 
a  time  when  the  Administration  regarded 
even  the  mention  of  military  preparation 
as  a  breach  of  that  neutrality  'even  in 
thought'  which  it  was  enjoining  upon  the 
American  people. 

"The  event  has  proved  that  Wood  was 
right. 

"It  was  the  confident  expectation  that 
the  soldier  who  had  so  nobly  jeopardized 
his  career  for  the  sake  of  his  country  would 
be  called  at  once  into  the  intimate  counsels 


200  Leonard  Wood 

of  the  Administration  now  that  the  crisis 
which  he  foretold  had  actually  come  upon 
us.  An  able,  far-sighted,  and  highly  ex 
perienced  general,  such  as  he,  who  holds 
also  the  affection  and  unbounded  confidence 
of  his  fellow-citizens,  is  surely,  at  such  an 
hour  as  this,  a  most  valuable  asset  to  his 
country.  And  we  take  it  that  no  other 
questions  than  those  of  his  record  and  his 
proved  ability  should  determine  the  degree 
of  his  employment. 

"Hence  it  came  about  that,  when  in  the 
same  breath  in  which  it  was  announced  that 
we  were  at  war,  we  were  told  that  our 
highest  ranking  officer,  the  very  soldier  who 
had  labored  to  awaken  the  country  to  the 
imminence  of  that  war,  had  been  removed 
to  a  minor  command, — the  country  simply 
stood  aghast." 

John  Jay  Chapman  in  a  communication  to 
the  New  York  Times,  said : 

"  Perhaps  nothing  that  President  Wilson 
could  have  done  would  so  have  shaken  pub 
lic  confidence. 


"  Broomstick  Preparedness  "    201 

''General  Wood  is  the  author  and  embodi 
ment  of  the  country's  present  mood.  .  .  . 

"General  Wood  is  the  man  of  the  hour. 

"For  the  Administration  in  the  present 
crisis  to  throw  away  its  greatest  asset  in 
the  way  of  popular  confidence  has  cast  into 
many  minds  a  doubt  as  to  whether  the  Ad 
ministration  is  in  earnest  about  the  war. 
To  blanket  General  Wood  is  the  first  thing 
an  anti-war  party  would  have  done  if  it  had 
come  into  power.  .  .  . 

"It  would  seem,  at  any  rate,  as  if  this 
slight  to  General  Wood  must  tend  to  in 
crease  his  importance  by  focusing  upon  him 
the  gratitude  and  admiration  of  every 
American  who  has  watched  his  course. " 


CHAPTER   VIII 


AT   WAR 

Rise  of  the  war  spirit  upon  entering  the  war — "The  President's 
War" — General  Wood  recommends  calling  of  reserve  officers 
— Is  excluded  from  counsels  with  the  Allied  Missions — 
Wood  receives  ovations  in  Southern  cities — He  is  again 
demoted  and  assigned  to  command  at  Camp  Funston — We 
borrow  our  war  equipment  from  the  Allies — Wood's  recom 
mendation  concerning  machine  guns  is  turned  down — Inves 
tigation  of  War  Department  by  Military  Affairs  Committee 
— Senator  Chamberlain  given  the  lie  by  the  President — The 
airplane  scandal — Wood's  report  on  lack  of  air  control  at 
front — The  Emergency  Fleet  Corporation — The  Army  Sup 
ply  System — Anxiety  during  the  winter  of  1917-18 — Mr. 
Baker  predicts  five  hundred  thousand  men  will  be  in  France 
"early"  in  1918 — General  Wood  goes  to  France — He  is 
wounded — After  discharge  from  hospital  reaches  New  York 
as  German  drive  opens — Makes  startling  statements  before 
Military  Affairs  Committee — Found  fit  for  field  service  by 
Medical  Board — Britain's  desperate  appeal  to  America  for 
troops — The  "  Transport  Miracle" — Ex-President  Roosevelt 
cited  on  War  Department  breakdown. 

As  soon  as  the  opportunity  was  afforded  by 
the  action  of  the  Administration,  the  country 
forgot  at  once  all  political  differences,  as  well 
as  its  discontent  over  official  dilatory  tactics. 
It  now  promptly  rallied  behind  the  President 

202 


At  War  203 

and  gave  him  a  whole-hearted  support  in  the 
tasks  which  lay  before  him.  Even  before  the 
declaration  of  war,  Senator  Lodge,  the  Re 
publican  leader  in  the  Senate,  had  pledged  the 
Administration  the  unfailing  support  of  his 
party  in  all  war  measures,  and  it  is  now  pleas 
ant  to  recall  that  Senator  John  Sharp  Williams, 
the  Democratic  leader,  declared  on  the  same 
floor  after  hostilities  had  terminated,  that 
Republicans  had  supported  the  President  on 
all  war  measures  better  than  had  the  members 
of  his  own  political  party.  Mr.  Roosevelt, 
the  most  outspoken  critic  of  the  Administra 
tion,  went  to  Washington  to  call  upon  the 
President  and  offer  him  his  hearty  support. 

The  support  of  the  people  was  no  less  strong 
and  ready  than  that  of  its  leaders  in  Congress. 
The  draft,  which  now  became  absolutely  neces 
sary,  was  accepted,  not  under  protest,  but  as  a 
patriotic  duty  and  privilege.  History  does 
not  recall  another  such  example,  and  it  is  to 
the  eternal  credit  of  Leonard  Wood  and  Theo 
dore  Roosevelt  and  the  defence  societies  that 
this  astounding  elevation  of  the  country's 
morale  had  been  accomplished  in  the  face 


204  Leonard  Wood 

of  administrative  disapproval.  All  the  huge 
war  loans  and  all  Red  Cross,  Y.  M.  C.  A.,  and 
other  war  subscriptions,  were  promptly  over 
subscribed. 

History  must,  however,  record  as  one  of  the 
strange  and  inexplicable  facts  of  the  situation 
that  in  the  prodigious  task  and  responsibility 
which  now  was  laid  upon  him,  the  President 
chose  to  put  personal  politics  above  patriotism, 
to  look  upon  all  his  former  critics  as  enemies, 
to  repel  the  support  of  the  country  as  a  whole; 
and,  unlike  any  of  the  leaders  of  the  Allied 
Powers,  to  conduct  America's  war  effort  as  a 
personal,  rather  than  as  a  national,  undertak 
ing.  He  chose  not  to  recognize  the  offer  of 
support  tendered  by  the  Republican  leaders, 
he  would  advise  with  none  but  his  own  politi 
cal  henchmen,  even  ignoring  those  patriotic 
and  loyal  Democrats  like  Senator  Cham 
berlain,  who  had  long  advocated  prepar 
edness;  and,  until  their  incompetence  began 
to  threaten  popular  support,  the  President 
filled  all  important  posts  with  trusted  political 
followers. 

In  the  inspired  biography  of  Colonel  House, 


THE  KANSAS  CITY  STAK 


^  e/cv  "**  YORK  0ffKX 

EODOKE  ROOSEVELT  J47  MADISON  AVENUE 


December  28th,   1918. 


Dear  Leonard: 

Is  it  true  that  officers  at  Camp 
Punston  have  been  discharged  because  of  their 
activities  against  conscientious  objectors? 

I  have  had  a  rather  severe  attack  of 
inflammatory  rheumatism  ,but  am  on  the  high  road 
to   recovery. 

Always  yours, 


Major-General  Leonard  Wood, 
Camp  Punston,  Kansas. 

One  of  the  last  letters  written  by  Theodore  Roosevelt.     This  shows  that 

he  looked  forward  to  early  recovery.     Nine  days  later  he 

passed  from  life  as  he  lay  asleep 


At  War  205 

scrupulously  revised  after  its  first  publication 
in  the  press,  we  read: 

"From  the  very  start  he  [Col.  House] 
knew  that  there  were  just  two  ways  in  which 
the  war  could  be  won:  By  outmatching 
Germany's  astonishing  achievements  in  co 
ordination  of  national  effort  and  by  attack 
ing  Germany  and  Austria  from  within.  He 
thoroughly  agreed  with  Mr.  Wilson  that 
American  political  institutions  would  not 
lend  themselves  to  such  departures  from 
national  custom  as  the  erection  of  a  Coali 
tion  Cabinet.  .  .  .  He  held,  with  the 
President,  that  the  extraordinary  amount 
of  responsibility  entrusted  under  the  Con 
stitution  to  the  President,  made  it  incum 
bent  upon  the  Chief  Executive  to  have  the 
support  of  men  of  his  own  party.  .  .  . 
To  him  will  go  the  credit  for  victory,  or  the 
obloquy  of  defeat.  .  .  . 

"No,  a  Coalition  Cabinet  was  rejected  by 
Colonel  House's  evenly  balanced  mind. 
The  idea  had  advantages,  but  they  were 
advantages  which  spring  from  playing  to 


206  Leonard  Wood 

the  galleries.  The  announcement  of  such  a 
step  would  be  hailed  by  all  sections  of  the 
country  as  a  mark  of  disinterestedness,  a 
proof  of^non-partisanship.  But  what  would 
such  tributes  avail  if  the  war  engine  were 
slowed  up?  .  .  .  Successful  administra 
tion  depends  to  a  great  degree  upon  com 
plete  unity  in  policy — which  requires  unity 
in  thought.  The  President  was  convinced 
that  in  a  situation  so  fraught  with  delicate 
questions  and  with  the  great  objects  he  had 
set  himself  to  attain,  it  was  more  than  ever 
necessary  for  him  to  have  the  support  of 
men  who  saw  with  him  eye  to  eye." 

General  Wood  remained  still  for  some  weeks 
in  command  of  the  department  of  the  East, 
which  embraced  the  entire  Atlantic  Seaboard, 
and  was  charged  with  the  inspection  of  more 
than  half  of  the  National  Guard  of  the  country. 
He  was  therefore  in  a  position  where  he  might 
accomplish  much  in  pushing  the  national  de 
fence,  and  he  set  himself  to  work  with  his  usual 
energy  and  foresight.  Almost  immediately,  he 
recommended  to  Secretary  Baker  that  the 


At  War  207 

Reserve  Corps,  comprising  from  800  to  900 
officers,  largely  resident  within  his  department, 
should  be  called  for  intensive  training  and 
placed  in  two  camps  to  be  located  one  in  the 
North  and  the  other  in  the  Southern  district ; 
and,  further,  that  the  sea-coast  fortifications 
be  utilized  for  the  training  of  suitably  qualified 
young  men,  making  use  for  their  equipment  of 
the  old  type  of  Springfield  and  the  Krag- 
Jorgensen  rifles. 

On  America's  intervention  in  the  war, 
Great  Britain  and  France,  and  later  Italy  and 
other  Allied  nations,  dispatched  to  Washing 
ton  important  missions  composed  of  the  most 
distinguished  men,  so  as  to  acquaint  the 
American  Government  with  the  desperateness 
of  the  military  situation  for  the  Allies,  the  need 
of  the  utmost  haste  in  making  its  force  felt 
without  a  moment  of  unnecessary  delay,  and 
also,  if  possible,  to  prevent  a  repetition  of 
those  costly  mistakes  into  which  they  had 
fallen.  Not  only  were  these  lessons  of  expe 
rience  frankly  confessed,  but  late  military 
knowledge  and  war  secrets  were  generously 
communicated  by  military  and  naval  experts 


208  Leonard  Wood 

who  at  once  went  into  conference  with  those 
of  our  own  services.  As  the  ranking  general 
of  the  army  and  the  military  head  of  its  most 
important  department,  it  was  the  duty  of 
General  Wood,  until  his  transfer  should  be 
come  effective,  to  receive  officially  these 
august  missions,  which  included  such  states 
men  as  Balfour  and  such  military  chieftains 
as  Joffre,  and  to  accompany  them  to  the  Na 
tional  Capital.  The  studied  affronts  which 
were  there  perpetrated  in  excluding  him  from 
the  military  councils  which  took  place,  as  well 
as  from  social  functions,  not  unnaturally  led 
members  of  the  missions,  quite  without  intent 
of  offering  offence,  to  ask  questions  no  less  em 
barrassing  to  the  Administration  than  they 
were  to  General  Wood. 

On  the  General's  arrival  at  his  new  post  at 
Charleston,  the  Southern  people  turned  out 
en  masse  and  received  him  with  public  ac 
clamation.  It  was  his  duty  to  travel  about 
his  department  for  the  purpose  of  making 
inspection  as  well  as  to  select  the  sites  for 
cantonments  of  the  new  National  Army,  and 
this  tour  of  duty  soon  resolved  itself  into  a 


At  War  209 

series  of  great  ovations.  In  each  city  that  he 
visited  he  was  met  by  delegations  of  citizens, 
and  at  Atlanta  and  Little  Rock  audiences  of 
sixty  thousand  people  gathered  to  see  and 
hear  him.  His  addresses  made  no  reference 
to  the  recent  unpleasant  incident  in  his  career, 
but  were  devoted  to  spurring  the  people  to  the 
utmost  effort  in  order  to  win  the  war. 

After  but  three  months  as  Commander  of 
the  Southeastern  Department,  another  at 
tempt  was  made  to  side-track  General  Wood, 
and  this  time  by  transfer  to  the  command  of 
the  military  cantonment  located  at  Camp 
Funston  in  Kansas.  On  arriving  at  this  post 
there  was  again  a  great  outpouring  of  citizens 
to  receive  and  welcome  him.  Here,  as  com 
mander  of  the  post,  it  became  his  duty  without 
formal  orders  to  train  the  89th  Division  of  the 
National  Army  which  was  assembling  there, 
and  his  phenomenal  success  as  an  effective  and 
inspiring  commander  was  here  to  be  strikingly 
demonstrated. 

The  primary  needs  of  our  armies  in  the  way 
of  equipment  were  service  rifles,  both  light 
and  heavy  machine  guns,  light  and  heavy  field 


210  Leonard  Wood 

artillery,  airplanes  (especially  combat  planes), 
tanks,  uniforms,  shoes,  blankets,  etc. ;  and,  in 
order  to  get  them  overseas,  ships.  The  failure 
to  secure  these,  or  in  other  instances  to  get 
them  within  a  reasonable  time,  was  due  in 
some  cases  quite  as  much  to  wrong-headed 
decisions  on  vital  issues,  as  it  was  to  dilatory 
tactics  and  incompetence.  It  was  nineteen 
months  from  the  date  of  our  intervention  in 
the  war  to  the  signing  of  the  armistice,  yet  we 
had  to  rely  upon  France  and  Great  Britain 
for  almost  our  entire  equipment  outside  of 
service  rifles  and  uniforms.  This  decision  to 
borrow  rather  than  to  manufacture  our  equip 
ment  had  been  absolutely  necessary  in  order 
that  we  should  take  part  in  the  war  at  all, 
notwithstanding  the  fact  that  the  French 
Government  in  the  matter  of  artillery  was 
terribly  handicapped  at  the  moment  by  the 
necessity  of  replacing  the  2500  to  3000  pieces 
of  artillery  which  had  been  lost  to  Italy  in  the 
terrible  Caporetto  disaster.  The  decision  in 
volved  for  France  the  retaining  of  much  of  her 
trained  man-power  behind  the  lines. 

The  Lewis  machine  gun,  the  invention  of  an 


At  War  211 

American  army  officer  adopted  by  Great  Brit 
ain  with  such  success,  was  at  the  time  of  our 
entry  into  the  war  available  for  quantity  pro 
duction  in  the  United  States.  This  gun  had 
been  tested  and  highly  approved  as  a  suitable 
light  machine  gun  by  a  Board  appointed  for 
the  purpose  by  General  Wood.  The  inventor, 
Colonel  Lewis,  had  however  criticised  the  coast- 
gun  carriages  that  had  been  invented  by  the 
head  of  the  Ordnance  Bureau  and  supplied  to 
our  coast  fortifications;  and  he  was  as  a  con 
sequence  in  disfavor  with  the  chief.  Whether 
or  not  because  of  this  disapproval,  the  Lewis 
gun  was  rejected  and  the  War  Department 
began  to  experiment  for  both  light  and  heavy 
machine  guns.  The  result  was  the  official 
approval  of  the  modified  Colt  weapons  which 
became  known  as  Browning  machine  guns, 
but  after  seventeen  months  of  delay  the  de 
partment  was  unable  to  supply  them  in  suffi 
cient  quantity.  The  direct  consequence  was 
that  the  American  Expeditionary  Force  had  to 
be  equipped  with  the  inferior  Chauchat  ma 
chine  gun,  which  employed  an  ammunition 
different  from  our  service  rifle  ammunition, 


212  Leonard  Wood 

with  resulting  large  difficulties  for  the  supply 
department.  The  reason  assigned  for  this 
costly  error  in  the  War  Department's  history 
of  its  effort  (The  War  with  Germany),  is  that 
because  the  Brownings  possessed  such  supe 
riority  over  any  other  machine  guns  in  use  by 
any  army,  the  Germans  might  conceivably 
capture  one,  rapidly  manufacture  it  in  suffi 
cient  quantities  to  supply  their  armies  and  so 
take  away  our  advantage — we  took  seventeen 
months  to  get  a  very  moderate  number  of 
pieces  ready.  This  official  report  goes  on  to 
say:  " Production  of  all  the  types  (of  machine 
guns)  was  pressed  and  the  advantages  of  pre 
paredness  illustrated.11  Again,  speaking  of  the 
men  that  could  have  been  equipped  with 
machine  guns  (but  were  not)  the  report  says: 
"In  fact  this  [non]  production  was  one  of  the 
striking  features  of  our  war  effort.  It  would 
have  resulted,  if  the  fighting  had  been  prolonged, 
in  a  greatly  increased  volume  of  fire  on  the 
part  of  the  American  troops."  (The  italics 
are  ours  in  both  instances.) 

The  Senate  Military  Affairs  Committee,  of 
which  Senator  Chamberlain  was  chairman, 


At  War  213 

undertook  an  investigation  of  the  War  Depart 
ment  during  the  winter  of  1917-18,  and  after 
six  weeks  listening  to  testimony  concerning  the 
confusion  and  incompetence  which  were  being 
displayed.  Thoroughly  disheartened  and  worn 
out,  he  declared  at  a  banquet  of  the  Na 
tional  Security  League  in  New  York  on  Janu 
ary  19,  1918,  that,  "the  Government  has  fallen 
down  on  war  work  because  of  inefficiency  in 
every  bureau  and  department . "  A  day  or  two 
later  the  President  retorted,  "Senator  Cham 
berlain's  statement  as  to  the  present  inaction 
and  ineffectiveness  of  the  Government  is  an 
astonishing  and  absolutely  unjustifiable  dis 
tortion  of  the  truth." 

There  have  been  few  finer  patriots  or  more 
valiant  advocates  of  preparedness  than  the 
Democratic  senator  from  Oregon,  and  the 
question  will  arise  in  many  minds  whether 
after  sitting  for  six  weeks  listening  to  testi 
mony  concerning  the  work  of  the  War  Depart 
ment  he  was  not  better  informed  upon  the 
subject  than  was  the  President  of  the  United 
States.  Senator  Chamberlain  admitted  that 
"every  bureau  and  department"  used  in  his 


214  Leonard  Wood 

statements  was  too  sweeping,  but  he  thereupon 
proceeded  to  present  some  of  the  startling  facts 
elicited  by  his  committee  and  followed  it  by 
proposing  the  formation  of  a  war  cabinet  with 
representatives  from  Congress.  This  the  Presi 
dent  stubbornly  opposed,  and  he  succeeded  in 
defeating  it;  but  the  net  result  of  the  incident 
was  a  really  serious  waking  up  within  the  War 
Department,  and  for  this  Senator  Chamberlain 
is  entitled  to  the  credit. 

The  investigation  of  the  airplane  scandal, 
which  after  much  opposition  was  at  last  or 
dered,  showed  that  almost  the  entire  appro 
priation  of  $640,000,000  had  been  wasted. 
In  accord  with  the  War  Department's  habitual 
policy,  a  plan  to  construct  twenty-two  thou 
sand  planes  to  be  used  in  the  campaign  of  1918 
had  been  widely  advertised  throughout  the 
country  by  the  official  press  bureau,  and  the 
Secretary  of  War  gave  out  frequent  rosy  re 
ports  of  progress,  as,  for  example,  the  one  in 
February,  1918,  that  the  "peak  of  production" 
would  soon  be  reached.  In  so  far  as  the  vitally 
essential  combat  planes  were  concerned,  our 
effort  along  this  line  was  practically  negligible 


At  War  215 

up  to  the  signing  of  the  armistice.  The  de 
fective  combat  planes  which  in  small  numbers 
were  supplied  at  the  front  have  been  declared 
responsible  for  the  deaths  of  some  of  our  best 
aviators. 

Returning  from  inspection  of  the  American 
front  just  previous  to  the  German  drive  of 
March,  1918,  General  Wood  reported  officially : 

"  So  far  as  can  be  learned  the  Germans 
have  taken  our  promised  aerial  fleet  as  one 
which  is  going  to  appear  in  the  battle  areas 
as  scheduled  and  have  built  to  meet  it. 
The  American  fighting  aeroplane  is  as  yet 
stranger  to  the  battlefields  of  Europe  and 
our  aviation  service  is  thus  far  pathetically 
unprepared.  The  American  Division  which 
I  visited  was  without  any  air  service  other 
than  that  furnished  by  the  French,  which 
latter  was  limited  in  character  because  of 
demands  on  their  own  front.  German 
planes  came  at  will  over  our  lines  and  on  one 
of  the  days  that  I  was  with  General  Bullard's 
Division,  a  German  plane  engaged  in  photo 
graphic  work  came  down  so  close  to  the 


216  Leonard  Wood 

ground  that  our  men  were  firing  at  it  with 
revolvers.  Our  failure  to  provide  aero 
planes  and  to  live  up  to  the  schedule  which 
was  expected  of  us  has  been  a  cause  of  bitter 
disappointment  and  no  small  amount  of 
embarrassment,  and,  as  I  said  above,  the 
enemy  has  taken  our  statements  very 
seriously  and  prepared  to  meet  them  effec 
tively.  " 

The  ships  which  were  so  badly  needed  to 
transport  our  men  and  supplies  abroad  did  not 
materialize.  To  head  the  Emergency  Fleet 
Corporation,  the  President  called  the  dis 
tinguished  builder  of  the  Panama  Canal,  but 
he  made  all  the  decisions  of  General  Goethals 
subject  to  approval  by  an  admiralty  lawyer 
from  San  Francisco  who  was  at  the  head  of  the 
Shipping  Board.  The  public  at  last  became 
exasperated  when  two  vitally  important 
months  had  been  squandered  in  a  deadlock 
within  this  double-headed  organization,  a 
difficulty  which  the  President  delayed  to 
remedy.  General  Goethals  wisely  opposed  the 
granting  of  almost  unlimited  contracts  upon 


a.  &  u. 


General  Wood  in  1918 


At  War  217 

the  vicious  "cost  plus"  system  with  its  en 
couragement  of  inefficiency,  as  he  did  the  large 
scale  construction  of  obsolete  types  of  wooden 
ships ;  and  his  wisdom  has  since  been  confirmed 
by  our  experience  in  constructing  these  almost 
worthless  vessels. 

In  discussing  the  equipment  of  the  American 
Expeditionary  Force,  the  War  Department's 
official  report  (The  War  with  Germany]  says: 
;<The  army  in  France  always  had  sufficient 
food  and  clothing."  Captain  Archie  Roose 
velt  commanded  a  company  in  the  famous 
First  American  Division,  a  division  which  had 
nearly  100  per  cent,  of  casualties.  He  reports 
that  his  men  were  without  suitable  shoes  dur 
ing  hard  campaigning,  and  that  after  all  at 
tempts  to  secure  them  through  official  channels 
had  failed,  he  wrote  home  and  obtained  them 
promptly.  His  wife  and  his  father  acting  to 
gether  bought  and  sent  to  his  command  at 
their  own  expense  250  pairs  of  shoes  which 
arrived  at  a  critical  time.  He  says: 

"To  refute  the  deliberate  lies  put  forth  by 
those  who  wish  to  show  what  their  efforts 


2i 8  Leonard  Wood 

accomplished,  I  will  list  some  of  the  supplies 
of  our  division  when  in  the  trenches  nine 
months  after  we  had  declared  war  with 
Germany.  It  can  be  seen  from  General 
Pershing's  report  that  the  condition  was 
but  little  improved  in  November,  1918,  after 
we  had  been  in  the  war  one  year  and  seven 
months. " 

He  then  states  that  the  shoes,  uniforms,  caps, 
helmets,  gas-masks,  rifles  and  pack  equipment, 
auto  rifles  and  machine  guns,  grenades,  mor 
tars  and  mortar  ammunition,  signal  equip 
ment  (with  instructions  in  French),  field 
artillery  and  its  ammunition,  ration  carts  and 
wagons,  artillery  horses,  and  aeroplanes  had 
practically  all  been  supplied  from  other  than 
American  sources,  and  that  some  were  good 
and  others  bad.  He  then  goes  on  to  say: 

"In  the  United  States,  those  conducting 
the  war  never  had  to  face  facts.  They 
dwelt  in  the  realm  of  fancy.  On  the  other 
side  Pershing  was  faced  with  the  total 
annihilation  of  his  forces  and  lasting  dis- 


At  War  219 

grace  to  the  United  States  and  himself. 
The  situation  was  such  as  to  bring  out  the 
best  in  every  decent  man.  I  believe  that 
even  the  small  minded  politicians  and  staff 
officers  in  the  United  States,  if  they  had 
been  fighting  in  Europe,  would  have  soon 
found  out  that  mere  lying  statements  about 
things  which  never  existed  gave  no  results 
in  the  fighting  line." 

The  ships  constructed  by  the  Emergency 
Fleet  Corporation,  even  though  it  was  eventu 
ally  taken  over  by  that  genius  of  construction, 
Mr.  Schwab,  played  but  a  subordinate  role  in 
our  troop  transport.  Half  of  our  troops  were 
transported  to  Europe  by  Great  Britain,  others 
in  French  and  Italian  vessels,  and  so  far  as 
carried  in  ships  under  American  control,  these 
were  very  largely  the  formerly  interned  Ger 
man  and  Austrian  vessels  which  had  been 
taken  over,  and  the  Dutch  ships  which  had  to 
be  seized  in  the  emergency. 

In  January,  1917,  nearly  three  months  be 
fore  our  entry  into  the  war,  General  Wood 
in  a  hearing  before  the  Joint  Military  Affairs 


220  Leonard  Wood 

Committees  of  Congress  had  urged  the  raising 
at  once  of  an  army  of  four  million  men  with 
its  full  equipment  in  rifles,  artillery,  etc.  No 
heed  was  paid  by  the  War  Department  to  this 
warning. 

The  military  campaigns  of  1917  closed  with 
a  most  discouraging  outlook  for  the  Allied 
Powers,  and  with  America's  powerful  aid  now 
assured  for  the  future  it  was  certain  that  Ger 
many  would  strike  with  all  her  force  in  a  des 
perate  drive  at  the  beginning  of  the  season  of 
1918.  Anxiety  was  intense  throughout  the 
preceding  winter.  Congressman,  afterward 
Senator,  Medill  McCormick,  who  had  gone  to 
Europe  for  the  purpose  of  obtaining  first-hand 
knowledge  of  the  situation,  was  told  by 
Premier  Lloyd  George  that  ''America  was  not 
using  its  big  men  in  the  war,"  and  inquired 
what  had  happened  to  General  Wood.  He 
said  he  would  like  to  see  General  Wood  in  the 
Allied  War  Council. 

The  Senate  Military  Affairs  Committee  had 
the  Secretary  of  War  on  the  stand,  to  state, 
among  other  things,  how  large  an  American 
army  he  was  assured  of  having  ready  in  Europe 


At  War  221 

at  the  opening  of  the  campaign  of  1918.  Mr. 
Baker  gave  the  committee  assurance  that 
"early"  in  1918 — Senator  Weeks  states  that 
to  him  he  gave  the  date  as  February  I5th — he 
expected  to  have  five  hundred  thousand  men 
in  France.  The  committee  expressed  its 
scepticism,  appearing  to  have  the  same  degree 
of  faith  in  this  statement  as  in  the  rosy  forecast 
concerning  the  aeroplane  fleet  that  was  to 
smother  the  German  army. 

General  Wood  had  now  about  completed 
the  training  of  the  89th  Division  of  the  Na 
tional  Army,  and,  like  other  prospective  divi 
sion  commanders  to  be  ordered  for  field  service, 
he  was  sent  to  France  to  first  become  ac 
quainted  with  conditions  at  the  front.  He 
inspected  the  British,  French,  and  American 
fronts  and  was,  by  the  Allied  generals  and 
statesmen,  shown  courtesies  in  keeping  with 
his  rank  and  his  record  as  a  soldier. 

On  January  27th,  while  at  Fere-en-Tar- 
denois  in  the  company  of  a  number  of  French 
and  American  officers,  Wood  was  watching  the 
work  of  a  French  mortar  being  operated  by  a 
French  crew.  The  shell  detonated  inside  the 


222  Leonard  Wood 

gun  blowing  the  latter  to  pieces.  The  gun 
crew  and  eighty  per  cent,  of  the  party  watching 
it  were  either  killed  or  wounded.  The  four 
officers  on  either  side  of  General  Wood  were 
killed  outright.  Six  fragments  of  metal  passed 
through  the  General's  clothing,  tore  off  a  por 
tion  of  his  sleeve,  and  two  of  these  fragments 
killed  the  officers  on  either  side  of  him.  A 
fragment  passed  through  the  thick  biceps  of 
the  General's  left  arm  and  lodged  in  the  arm 
pit.  He  was  the  only  man  within  twelve  feet 
of  the  gun  who  was  not  killed  outright.  His 
wound  was  dressed  in  the  field  hospital,  and 
the  next  day  he  motored  to  Paris  to  be  treated 
in  the  French  officers'  hospital  in  the  Hotel 
Ritz,  from  which  he  was  discharged  in  three 
weeks — an  evidence  of  his  excellent  physical 
condition. 

On  General  Wood's  return  to  New  York  in 
March,  in  accordance  with  custom  where 
officers  are  to  be  given  command  in  the  field, 
he  was  called  before  a  medical  board  for  a 
special  physical  examination  to  determine  his 
fitness  for  field  service.  The  board  was  a  dis 
tinguished  one  and  included  Dr.  Billings  and 


At  War  223 

Dr.  Charles  Mayo,  the  celebrated  Rochester 
physician.  Wood  was  by  this  board  pro 
nounced  entirely  fit  for  field  service.  This  fact 
is  of  interest,  because  a  whispering  propaganda 
was  later  widely  circulated  that  the  reason  for 
detaching  him  from  his  command  on  the  eve 
of  its  departure  for  the  front  was  physical  un- 
fitness.  It  might  here  be  added  that  he  suc 
cessfully  passed  another  physical  examination 
before  a  different  medical  board  in  the  late 
fall  of  1918,  just  before  the  roth  Division  was 
expected  to  sail  for  the  front. 

What  General  Wood  had  seen  of  the  critical 
situation  at  the  Western  front,  and  of  the 
preparations  being  made  by  Germany  to  over 
whelm  the  Allied  armies,  made  it  his  duty  to 
acquaint  the  American  Government  with  this 
alarming  situation.  Of  the  five  hundred 
thousand  men  who,  as  Secretary  Baker  had  as 
sured  the  Military  Affairs  Committee,  would 
be  at  the  front  at  this  time,  there  were  actually 
but  four  divisions  or  about  one  hundred  thou 
sand  men  in  the  trenches.  Arriving  in  Wash 
ington,  Wood  found  at  the  War  Department 
confusion  combined  with  apparent  content- 


224  Leonard  Wood 

ment  and  his  attempt  to  see  the  Commander- 
in-Chief  was  rebuffed.  He  was,  however, 
promptly  summoned  before  the  Military  Af 
fairs  Committee,  and  his  frankly  told  story  did 
much  to  instill  life  into  the  War  Department. 
The  expected  German  drive  was  launched 
on  March  2ist  as  General  Wood  was  before 
the  Military  Affairs  Committee.  Tearing 
through  the  Allied  lines  in  Picardy  for  an  ad 
vance  of  some  thirty  miles,  the  German  forces 
were  at  last  halted  by  French  reserves  des 
patched  by  Foch  just  as  the  Paris-Calais  life 
line  had  been  cut  near  Amiens,  and  that  great 
city  brought  under  long-range  fire.  Halted 
here,  another  push  was  made  by  the  Germans 
in  the  Flanders  section  which  so  overwhelmed 
the  British  armies  that  General  Haig  an 
nounced  that  his  army  "had  its  back  to  the 
wall."  The  suspense  was  terrible  and  civiliza 
tion  came  nearer  to  collapse  than  at  any  other 
time  in  the  history  of  the  war.  But  again 
French  reserves  were  able  to  reach  the  critical 
area  at  the  last  moment,  and  the  Germans 
were  finally  halted  upon  the  slopes  of  Mt. 
Kemmel. 


At  War  225 

After  the  debacle  of  March  2ist,  in  which 
the  British  Fifth  Army  had  been  routed  in 
Picardy,  Lloyd  George  sent  a  desperate  appeal 
to  President  Wilson  to  get  the  American  troops 
over.  The  answer  of  the  President  came 
promptly,  in  which  he  promised  to  do  this  if 
Great  Britain  "would  carry  her  share."  In 
this  crisis  British  ships  were  pulled  out  of  the 
trades,  thus  robbing  the  island  nation  of  two 
hundred  thousand  tons  of  essential  cargoes  and 
holding  up  shipments  of  perishable  supplies 
from  many  of  the  British  colonies.  The  re 
sult  of  this  great  sacrifice  on  the  part  of  Great 
Britain  was  that  one  million  Americans — sixty 
per  cent,  or  more  of  them  American  troops- 
had  reached  France  by  Independence  Day. 
On  this  date  President  Wilson  and  Secretary 
Baker  both  issued  congratulatory  messages  to 
the  American  people  upon  the  achievement  of 
"this  transport  miracle";  but  neither  of  them 
mentioned  in  his  message  the  part  of  Great 
Britain  in  the  "miracle." 

Furthermore,  the  War  Department's  ex 
planation  of  its  conduct  of  the  war  (The  War 
with  Germany),  written  by  Colonel  Ayres  and 

IS 


226  Leonard  Wood 

published  in  1919,  belittled  the  part  of  Great 
Britain  in  the  transportation  of  our  troops 
overseas.  In  a  defence  of  this  report  against 
attack  Colonel  Ayres  said  (Boston  Evening 
Transcript  of  September  3,  1919):  "The  fact 
is  that  the  British  shipping  used  in  the  spring 
of  1918  did  not  consist  of  cargo  ships  but 
almost  entirely  of  passenger  liners  which  the 
British  were  glad  to  operate  at  the  prices  we 
paid  and  in  which  they  reserved  for  themselves 
the  cargo  space." 

It  is  important  that  the  American  public 
should  know  the  stark  truth  concerning  what 
Great  Britain's  supreme  sacrifice  was  in  this 
crisis  of  civilization.  Sir  Joseph  Maclay,  the 
British  shipping  controller,  has  fortunately 
supplied  us  with  the  facts.  These  were  given 
out  in  an  interview  which  was  published  in  the 
New  York  Times  of  August  4,  1918.  Some 
what  abridged,  his  statements  are  as  follows: 

"On  the  average  about  sixty  per  cent,  of 
the  American  troops  have  been  carried  in 
British  ships,  and,  as  I  will  explain  later  on, 
the  proportion  is  steadily  rising.  .  .  . 


At  War  227 

''After  the  German  offensive  opened  in 
March,  we  had  to  make  a  big  effort.  I  may 
add  that  of  the  638,000  troops  carried  in  the 
months  of  April,  May,  and  June,  331,000 
were  accommodated  in  British  ships.  .  .  . 

"We  are  working  to  promote  a  common 
cause,  and  we  are  not  patting  ourselves  on 
the  back  for  what  we  are  doing.  But  I 
might  add,  since  the  fact  may  not  be  well 
known,  that  we  are  only  able  to  face  these 
new  responsibilities  by  sacrificing  for  the 
time,  not  only  British,  but  imperial  interests. 

"  Ships  which  under  the  normal  conditions 
were  engaged  in  the  trade  between  the 
British  Islands  and  the  Far  East,  Australia 
and  India,  have  had  to  be  withdrawn  from 
service,  and  we  have  been  compelled  to 
sacrifice  to  a  very  large  extent  the  commu 
nications  between  the  mother  country  and 
the  Dominions.  Of  the  manner  in  which 
the  people  of  the  Dominions  have  bowed 
to  the  compelling  circumstances,  it  has  been 
really  splendid,  but  there  is  more  in  it  even 
than  that. 

"This    concentration    of    shipping    has 


228  Leonard  Wood 

meant  the  severing  of  trade  associations 
built  up  during  long  periods  of  years.  Every 
business  man  well  understands  the  character 
of  that  sacrifice,  for  there  is  no  saying  when 
those  abandoned  services  can  be  resumed. 
That  statement  may  suggest  the  character 
of  the  sacrifice  which  the  British  people  are 
making  in  order  to  facilitate  the  movement 
of  American  troops." 

In  his  testimony  before  the  Military  Affairs 
Committee  at  the  hearing  of  December  18, 
1916,  General  Wood  had  set  forth  the  urgent 
need  of  training  and  equipping  without  delay 
an  army  of  four  million  men.  On  his  return 
from  the  front  in  March,  1918,  he  urged  this 
again  with  even  greater  insistence,  now  making 
the  figure  five  million  instead  of  four  million. 
Lieutenant  General  Young,  ex-Presidents 
Roosevelt  and  Taft,  and  others  who  knew  the 
terrible  need,  echoed  this  warning.  Says  ex- 
President  Roosevelt,  writing  in  the  fall  of  1918 : 

"When  last  March  General  Wood  and 
General  Young  and  Mr.  Taft  and  the  pres- 


At  War  229 

ent  writer  asked  for  the  immediate  raising 
of  an  army  of  five  million  troops  (we  meant 
fighting  soldiers,  and  not  an  alloy  of  forty 
per  cent,  of  non-combatants)  our  purpose 
was  not  rhetorical.  But  to  President  Wil 
son  the  matter  seemed  primarily  one  of 
competitive  rhetoric.  Obviously  he  felt 
uneasy  about  the  proposal  and  treated  it  as 
one  which  could  be  deftly  put  aside  by 
adroit  use  of  language.  Accordingly,  with 
marked  histrionic  effect,  he  asked,  'why 
limit  the  army'  to  the  five  million  we  pro 
posed,  and  announced  that  he  wished  an 
army  'without  limit/  This  was  highly 
satisfactory  as  rhetoric.  But  the  action  of 
the  President,  taken  through  his  Secretary 
of  War,  showed  that  it  was  merely  rhetoric. 
The  phrase  was  an  'army  without  limit'; 
the  fact  was  that  the  army  was  fixed  at  a 
much  lower  limit  than  that  which  we  had 
asked,  and  was  thus  fixed  six  months  after 
we  urged  immediate  action.  Secretary 
Baker  did  not  set  himself  to  meet  our 
greatest  military  need  of  to-day,  which  is 
a  thorough  mobilization  of  our  whole  man- 


23°  Leonard  Wood 

power  for  service  in  our  armies  and  in  our 
war  industries.  He  set  himself  to  prevent 
the  meeting  of  this  need.  Congress  last 
spring  made  ready  to  go  ahead  with  the 
'fight  or  work'  plan.  But  Mr.  Baker, 
acting  for  the  President,  intervened.  He 
asked  for  delay,  for  procrastination,  and  of 
course  thereby  paralyzed  Congressional  ac 
tion.  He  protested  against  the  enlarge 
ment  of  the  draft-age  limits.  He  protested 
against  planning  more  than  a  few  months 
in  advance.  He  said  that  we  were  'many 
months  ahead  of  our  original  hope  in  re 
gard  to  the  transportation  of  men'  over 
seas;  but  he  omitted  to  add  that  this  was 
because  the  original  plans  were  hopelessly 
inadequate. 

"Never  in  our  history  has  there  been 
more  fatuous  incompetence  than  that  dis 
played,  alike  in  plan  and  action,  by  the 
War  Department  during  the  first  nine 
months  after  we  entered  the  war. 

"It  was  Ludendorff  who  effectively  re 
vised  the  plans  of  President  Wilson  and 
Secretary  Baker. 


At  War  231 

'Then  the  English  lent  us  ships,  and  we 
really  began  to  send  men  abroad,  until  we 
had  perhaps  a  million  soldiers  and  over  half 
as  many  non-combatants  across.  We  ac 
tually  did  what  we  ought  to  have  done,  and 
by  the  exercise  of  moderate  efficiency  would 
have  done,  just  one  year  previously.  But 
in  June  the  drive  for  the  time  being  halted, 
and  immediately  Mr.  Baker  proposed  a 
reversion  to  our  former  Rip  Van  Winkle 
slumber.  .  .  . 

"Nor  is  it  only  our  army  as  to  which 
there  is  now  failure  to  provide  for  the  future. 
The  same  is  true  for  the  navy.  During  the 
first  six  months  of  the  war  the  navy  was 
almost  as  badly  handled  as  the  army,  and 
it  has  not  yet  recovered  from  its  complete 
mismanagement  during  the  previous  four 
years.  Four  years  ago,  Admiral  Bradley 
Fiske  dared  to  tell  the  truth  about  naval 
conditions.  He  thereby  rendered  a  very 
great  service  to  the  country,  and  for  doing 
this  the  authorities  punished  him,  exactly 
as  Wood  was  punished  for  similar  truth- 
telling;  and  thereby  in  both  cases  they 


232  Leonard  Wood 

served  notice  on  the  best  men  in  the  army 
and  navy  that  they  jeopardized  their  careers 
if  they  told  the  truth  in  the  interest  of  our 
people  as  a  whole." 


CHAPTER  IX 


A  SOLDIER  S  REWARD 

Attempt  to  shelve  General  Wood  on  the  eve  of  his  departure  for 
the  front — Angry  protests  from  the  public,  the  press,  and 
from  leading  men — Wood's  parting  address  to  his  men — 
Whispering  propaganda  that  order  was  given  because  of  the 
General's  physical  unfitness — The  loth  Division  trained  in 
record  time — A  military  review  at  Camp  Funston — The 
ideals  of  a  Christian  soldier — Putting  the  division  to  school  at 
the  signing  of  the  armistice — The  Government's  tardy  change 
of  attitude  towards  General  Wood — Wood's  part  in  the  suc 
cess  of  the  American  doughboy  in  France — The  General's 
real  reward. 


They  took  counsel  to  humble  his  soldier's  prid« 

By  holding  him  back  from  the  goal. 
But  he  pressed  his  lips,  and  he  tempered  his  men 

In  the  flame  of  his  dauntless  soul. 

Glory  and  guerdon  to  him  who  sent 

His  spirit  to  France  and  the  Rhine 
In  the  fighting  host  that  he  trained  and  loved — 

First  soldier  of  the  line! 

HARRY  TORSEY  BAKER. 


LATE  in  May  of  1918,  the  crack  Sgih  Divi 
sion  of  the  National  Army — a  division  which 
later  made  an  enviable  reputation  at  the 

233 


234  Leonard  Wood 

front — had  completed  its  training  under  Gen 
eral  Wood  at  Camp  Funston  and  received 
orders  to  entrain  for  the  port  of  embarkation. 
Its  commander,  who  had  had  his  tour  of  in 
spection  at  the  front  and  had  passed  success 
fully  his  special  examination  for  field  service, 
thereupon  disposed  of  his  saddle  horses  and 
made  all  his  arrangements  with  reference  to  a 
long  tour  of  service  in  France. 

Arriving  in  New  York  City,  the  port  of 
embarkation,  General  Wood  was  handed  a 
telegraphic  order  from  the  War  Department 
which  detached  him  from  his  command  and 
assigned  him  to  duty  at  the  Presidio,  the  de 
serted  military  post  at  San  Francisco.  The 
dispatch  contained  no  explanation  whatever 
of  the  reason  for  issuing  it,  and  none  has  since 
been  furnished.  What  this  sudden  blow 
meant  to  a  fighting  soldier  like  General  Wood 
few  will  ever  know,  for  with  stoical  determina 
tion  he  does  not  talk  of  it,  though  he  did  ask 
the  Administration  to  rescind  the  order. 

If  the  country  had  been  shocked  at  the 
treatment  of  General  Wood  at  the  time  of  our 
entering  the  war — when  his  department  had 


A  Soldier's  Reward  235 

been  broken  up  without  consulting  him  and 
the  attempt  made  to  shelve  him  at  a  remote 
post  in  the  Pacific — it  was  now  fairly  stupefied. 
Even  the  New  York  World,  the  Administra 
tion  organ,  said  that  it  "will  give  every  fair- 
minded  man  a  bad  taste  in  the  mouth."  The 
pro-Administration  Brooklyn  Eagle  attempted 
to  make  out  that  this  action  had  been  taken  be 
cause  General  Pershing  did  not  want  to  have 
General  Wood  as  a  subordinate;  that  the 
"  order  came  as  a  complete  surprise  to  the 
President,"  and  they  hoped  some  staff  officer 
would  be  rapped  over  the  knuckles  for  "hav 
ing  issued  such  an  order  without  consult 
ing  the  President."  The  idea  that  any  staff 
officer  would  have  ventured  to  issue  such  an 
order  without  the  knowledge  of  the  President 
was,  of  course,  too  absurd  for  serious  con 
sideration. 

Ex-President  Taft  said  in  the  Philadelphia 
Ledger : 

'The  country  is  seriously  disappointed 
that  General  Wood  has  not  been  permitted 
to  go  abroad  with  the  division  which  he  has 


236  Leonard  Wood 

been  training.  .  .  .  The  previous  treat 
ment  of  General  Wood  creates  doubt  of  the 
explanation  that  his  shelving  is  due  to  Gen 
eral  Pershing's  request.  The  suspicion  that 
it  is  but  a  continuation  of  the  discipline  of 
General  Wood,  this  time  for  his  frank  evi 
dence  before  the  Senate  Committee  on  Mili 
tary  Affairs,  will  find  strong  lodgment  in 
the  minds  of  the  people/* 

Said  the  New  York  Tribune: 

"  He  [General  Wood]  is  indiscreet.  Thank 
God  for  that.  The  truth  will  not  stay 
in  him.  It  bubbles  forth  and  hurts  like 
shrapnel.  .  .  .  He  is  no  respecter  of  sacred 
persons.  When  he  returned  from  France 
he  cast  the  truth  upon  Congress  and 
knocked  in  vain  at  the  door  of  the  White 
House.  The  atmosphere  was  charged  with 
his  indignation  at  the  inertia  he  found  and 
the  contentment  there  was  in  the  midst  of 
confusion,  though  Hindenburg's  blow  was 
about  to  fall  on  the  west  front.  He  had  seen 
and  he  knew.  But  what  he  knew  the  Gov- 


General  Wood  and  Admiral  Usher 


A  Soldier's  Reward  237 

ernment  did  not  wish  to  hear.  The  Presi 
dent  declined  to  receive  him.  The  Senate 
Military  Affairs  Committee  summoned  him 
and  he  made  the  Capitol  corridors  ring." 

Senator  Johnson  of  California,  speaking  on 
the  floor  of  the  United  States  Senate,  declared 
that  this  act  of  the  President  "  illustrates  the 
extent  which  we  have  gone  in  transmuting  this 
democracy  into  an  autocracy." 

It  was  necessary  for  General  Wood  to  say  a 
word  at  the  time  of  taking  leave  of  his  di 
vision.  It  is  simple  and  straightforward, 
without  complaint  or  recrimination,  but  it 
does  not  entirely  hide  the  anguish  at  his  dis 
appointment  of  his  hope : 

"I  will  not  say  good-bye,  but  consider  it 
a  temporary  separation — at  least  I  hope  so. 
I  have  worked  hard  with  you  and  you  have 
done  excellent  work.  I  had  hoped  very 
much  to  take  you  over  to  the  other  side. 
In  fact,  I  had  no  intimation,  direct  or  in 
direct,  of  any  change  of  orders  until  we 
reached  here  the  other  night.  The  orders 


238  Leonard  Wood 

have  been  changed  and  I  am  to  go  back  to 
Funston.  I  leave  for  that  place  to-morrow 
morning.  I  wish  you  the  best  of  luck  and 
ask  you  to  keep  up  the  high  standard  of 
conduct  and  the  work  you  have  maintained 
in  the  past.  The  orders  stand :  and  the  only 
thing  to  do  is  to  do  the  best  we  can — all  of 
us — to  win  the  war.  That  is  what  we  are 
here  for.  That  is  what  you  have  been 
trained  for.  I  shall  follow  your  career  with 
the  greatest  interest — with  just  as  much  in 
terest  as  though  I  were  with  you.  Good 
luck:  and  God  bless  you!" 

The 8Qth  or  "Leonard  Wood  Division"  now 
rechristened  itself  the  "Orphan  Division," 
and  it  paid  the  greatest  possible  tribute  to  its 
leader  in  the  enviable  record  it  made  at  the 
front  as  a  splendidly  trained  fighting  division. 

An  angry  resentment  found  voice  from  one 
end  of  the  country  to  the  other  over  this 
punishment  of  a  great  soldier  for  putting  his 
country's  dire  need  before  his  own  personal 
fortunes.  This  note  was  so  strong  and  insist 
ent  that  the  army  orders  were  modified  to 


A  Soldier's  Reward  239 

the  extent  that  General  Wood,  instead  of  being 
shelved  at  the  Presidio,  was  allowed  to  go 
back  to  Camp  Funston  and  exercise  his  un 
usual  skill  in  training  another  division.  The 
General's  motto  is,  "Do  things  but  don't  talk 
about  them." 

The  official  press  bureau  now  began  to  throw 
out  suggestions  that  General  Wood  was  being 
held  for  an  important  post  at  the  front — to 
command  an  army  in  Italy,  in  Siberia,  etc. 
The  earlier  rumors  of  like  nature  having  been 
shown  to  be  false,  these  echoes  were  apparently 
not  taken  very  seriously  by  the  public.  The 
whispering  propaganda,  however,  which  was 
carried  throughout  the  country  to  the  effect 
that  General  Wood  was  physically  unfit  for 
field  service  and  that  this  was  the  real  reason 
why  he  had  not  been  allowed  to  go  to  the  front, 
gained  wide  currency  and  was  no  doubt  con 
firmed  in  the  popular  mind  by  Secretary 
Baker's  statement  before  the  Military  Affairs 
Committee  that  the  order  had  been  issued 
"for  military  reasons." 

When  General  Wood  arrived  at  Camp  Fun 
ston  the  new  loth  Division  was  just  arriving 


240  Leonard  Wood 

at  the  camp.  It  was  of  course  anxious  to 
complete  its  training  in  time  to  reach  the  front 
and  get  into  the  fighting  before  hostilities 
should  cease,  as  it  was  already  evident  that 
Foch  was  fast  driving  the  Huns  out  of  France. 
The  General  endeavored  to  meet  this  laudable 
ambition,  and  his  success  in  whipping  this 
body  of  recruits  into  shape  is  probably  with 
out  a  parallel  in  our  army  service,  if  it  is  in  the 
history  of  any  army.  The  first  men  of  the 
division  had  begun  to  organize  into  groups 
on  August  loth.  They  were  prepared  and 
trained  ready  to  leave  for  the  front  on  No 
vember  ist,  less  than  three  months  later,  and 
the  six  officers  of  the  British  and  French  Ser 
vice  Mission,  which  had  arrived  in  the  middle 
of  September  and  been  with  the  division  for 
six  weeks,  as  a  result  of  a  critical  examination, 
declared  the  loth  Division  to  be  the  best  pre 
pared  and  best  trained  of  any  that  they  had 
seen  in  the  United  States. 

On  August  24th,  a  divisional  parade  was 
planned  and  the  people  of  Kansas  posted 
themselves  on  the  hills  of  the  military  reserva 
tion  to  observe  the  result.  Long  before  day- 


A  Soldier's  Reward  241 

light,  the  reservation  had  been  closed  to  traffic 
and  nearly  30,000  men  with  long  lines  of  trans 
portation,  artillery,  etc.,  began  to  move  out. 
Each  unit  had  its  schedule  requiring  that  it 
pass  a  certain  point  at  a  certain  time;  and  a 
staff  officer  present  has  reported  "that  it  was 
a  more  or  less  unexpected  but  a  very  agreeable 
surprise  to  note  that  the  last  unit  swung  into 
line  and  came  to  rest  on  the  review  field  exactly 
on  the  minute  set  for  the  commencement  of  the 
review  proper. ' '  He  adds : 

"The  review  was  really  a  wonderful 
demonstration  of  the  General's  ability  as  an 
organizer  and  leader.  Military  men  who 
understand  the  difficulties  of  such  an  or 
ganization  looked  upon  it  as  nothing  short 
of  marvellous.  A  number  of  the  French 
and  British  officers,  who  have  seen  fighting 
on  the  other  side,  were  especially  loud  in 
their  praise." 

The  soldier  who  gets  his  training  under  Gen 
eral  Wood  learns,  however,  something  besides 
tactics;  he  gets  sound  advice  to  guide  him  in 


242  Leonard  Wood 

the  struggle  ahead.  In  a  talk  to  the  men  of 
the  loth  Division  on  September  I2th,  the 
General  said: 

"You  are  going  over  there.  So  live  that 
you  go  over  clean  and  sound.  Take  care  of 
yourselves,  get  into  the  best  possible  con 
dition.  You  will  feel  a  lot  better  when  you 
come  up  against  death  some  day  if  you  have 
been  a  clean  and  decent  man,  don't  forget 
that.  The  mucker  isn't  a  good  soldier. 
He  may  make  a  good  impetuous  fighter  in  a 
moment  of  excitement,  but  he  will  not  in  the 
trenches  or  along  the  line.  There  is  a  reli 
gion  of  the  trenches  over  there.  It  is  founded 
on  doing  your  duty  and  saying  mighty  little, 
keeping  clean,  obeying  orders,  and  being  on 
the  job.  That  is  the  soldier's  religion  over 
there:  duty — come  what  may.  .  .  . 

"Respect  your  uniform.  Do  not  take  it 
where  you  would  not  take  the  women  of 
your  own  family.  It  is  the  uniform  of  your 
country,  thousands  of  our  men  have  died  in 
it.  Keep  it  clean,  don't  dishonor  it  by 
taking  it  where  you  would  be  ashamed 


A  Soldier's  Reward          243 

to  take  your  mother,  your  wife,  or  your 
sister. 

"  There  has  never  been  a  time  when  moral 
force  has  been  more  important  than  in  this 
war.  The  old  romance  of  war  is  gone;  no 
more  of  the  three  or  four  days'  hard  fighting, 
something  accomplished,  and  then  a  rest, 
but  it  is  just  hammer  away  all  the  time  and 
the  fellow  that  can  smile  last  is  the  one  who 
is  going  to  win.  It  is  a  struggle  requiring 
character  and  determination.  We  want  the 
kind  of  soldier  that  Cromwell  describes. 
'A  God-fearing  man  well  spoken  of  by  the 
people/  That  is  the  kind  of  soldier  we 
need.  And  it  is  the  kind  of  soldier  we  are 
getting  now,  for  we  are  a  Christian  people 
and  our  new  army  is  the  people  in  arms. 

"You  are  giving  everything,  you  are 
offering  everything  you  have,  including  life 
itself,  to  win  this  war.  You  typify,  your 
arms  typify,  all  that  is  best  in  the  tradition 
of  soldiers;  the  man  that  goes  out  to  give 
everything  that  others  may  live,  that  right 
may  prevail — man  can  do  nothing  finer.  .  .  . 

"A  real  soldier  tells  little  of  what  he  has 


244  Leonard  Wood 

done  and  never  brags  of  what  he  is  going  to 
do.  Be  modest.  Now  you  are  going  into 
France,  probably,  or  into  Belgium.  You 
are  going  to  live  in  the  houses,  in  the  vil 
lages,  towns,  crowd  the  streets,  of  the 
people  who  have  been  fighting  our  battle — 
mind  you,  our  battle — for  four  years. 
Don't  go  as  braggarts  go,  go  as  gentlemen; 
a  real  soldier  is  always  a  gentleman.  Be 
modest,  quiet,  observant  of  the  traditions 
of  these  people,  careful  of  their  feelings. 
The  dead  and  permanently  crippled  of 
France  in  this  war  number  two  million  of 
men.  That  is  France's  contribution  to  the 
war.  England's  is  about  the  same.  Do 
you  know  what  that  means?  A  column  of 
squads  well  closed  up  that  reaches  more 
than  across  the  whole  State  of  Kansas,  and 
would  take  seven  days  and  five  hours  for 
them  to  pass  you  at  an  ordinary  marching 
gait.  I  refer  to  the  French  alone.  Those 
are  the  dead  and  permanently  crippled 
alone.  Now,  when  you  come  into  their 
land  do  not  say,  '  We  have  come  to  win  the 
war.'  Simply  say,  'We  have  come  over  to 


A  Soldier's  Reward  245 

help  you  win  the  war,'  and  if  we  do  as  well 
as  they  have  done  we  shall  reflect  honor 
upon  our  country,  our  army,  and  our 
flag.  .  .  . 

"And  now  another  word  to  the  officers. 
.  .  .  There  is  nothing  that  so  quickly  dis 
turbs  morale,  good  purpose,  and  that  spirit 
of  loyalty  on  the  part  of  men  to  their  officers 
as  an  arbitrary  exercise  of  unreasonable 
authority.  In  other  words,  remember  your 
men  are  human  beings,  and  remember  some 
thing  else,  if  you  destroy  a  man's  self- 
respect  you  absolutely  destroy  him  as  a 
soldier  and  you  might  as  well  send  him  back 
home.  You  have  got  to  preserve  a  man's 
self-respect  if  he  is  to  maintain  a  respect  for 
you  and  that  kind  of  loyalty  which  comes 
from  confidence  in  you.  Let  the  men 
realize  that  you  are  their  best  friend,  that 
the  authority  you  exercise  is  for  their  well- 
being,  and  you  will  have  no  trouble." 

When,  on  November  nth,  hostilities  had 
been  prematurely  ended  by  the  signing  of  the 
armistice — with  an  unconditional  surrender 


Leonard  Wood 


already  reflected  in  the  military  situation,  in 
Foch's  intended  drive,  in  Germany's  bitter 
wails,  as  well  as  in  a  new  crop  of  diplomatic 
notes  —  there  was  the  danger  that  with  the 
supreme  test  for  which  the  men  in  the  ranks 
had  been  steeling  themselves  now  suddenly 
removed,  there  would  be  a  sudden  drop  in 
morale. 

Most  of  the  men  at  Funston  were  farmers, 
and  General  Wood  at  once  carried  out  arrange 
ments  with  the  Kansas  Agricultural  College, 
located  a  few  miles  only  from  the  camp,  for  a 
course  of  instruction  for  the  soldiers  in  such 
branches  of  agricultural  work  as  stock-raising, 
land  fertilization,  etc.  In  addition,  it  was  ar 
ranged  to  take  three  hundred  men  into  the 
workshops  and  laboratories  for  instruction  in 
mechanical  engineering.  At  the  camp  itself 
the  mornings  only  were  given  over  to  military 
instruction  and  training,  and  the  afternoons 
devoted  to  study.  As  a  contemporary  has  re 
marked:  "  There  is  in  all  this  a  breadth  of 
vision  and  an  intelligent  patriotism  quite  char 
acteristic  of  General  Wood.  It  is  worthy  of 
him  at  his  best  and  that  is  saying  a  good  deal." 


A  Soldier's  Reward  247 

Tardily  the  Government  awakened  to  an 
appreciation  of  the  people's  resentment  over 
the  treatment  of  General  Wood.  He  was 
called  to  Washington  and  the  Distinguished 
Service  Medal  was  pinned  upon  his  breast  by 
the  Secretary  of  War.  He  was  now  trans 
ferred  to  the  command  of  the  Central  Depart 
ment  of  the  Army  with  headquarters  at 
Chicago,  one  of  many  transfers  made  under 
President  Wilson's  Administration,  but  the 
only  one  which  was  not  in  the  nature  of  a  de 
motion  and  punishment. 

The  real  reward  of  this  sturdy  type  of  Chris 
tian  soldier  lies  in  a  clear  conscience.  Re 
sponsibility  for  the  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
brave  lives  that  were  sacrificed  on  the  battle 
fields  of  Europe  because  his  solemn  warnings, 
so  insistently  sounded,  failed  to  galvanize  the 
Government  into  action,  does  not  lie  with  him. 
If,  under  this  fearful  handicap,  the  General  did 
indeed  fail  in  his  attempt  to  prevent  the  break 
down  of  the  War  Department  when  the  storm 
had  broken,  he  at  least  had  a  very  large 
part  in  the  responsibility  for  the  splendid  rec 
ord  of  the  American  doughboy  at  the  front 


248  Leonard  Wood 

—America's  one  great  feat  in  the  war— 
the  one  fact  that  makes  every  true  Ameri 
can  swell  with  pride  at  the  mere  thought 
of  it. 

The  private  soldier  is  no  better  and  no  worse 
than  the  officers  with  whom  he  comes  into 
direct  contact,  his  own  company  officers.  No 
matter  how  good  the  material  in  the  ranks 
may  be,  it  is  largely  wasted  under  incompetent 
officers.  In  the  American  Expeditionary 
Force  the  company  officers  were  with  few 
exceptions  well  trained,  and  it  has  been  the 
puzzle  of  European  army  staffs  how  this  result 
was  accomplished  when  no  officers'  reserve  of 
consequence  existed  in  our  army  at  the  out 
break  of  the  war. 

The  answer  to  this  puzzle  is  found  in  the 
Plattsburg  camps,  through  which  passed  dur 
ing  the  four  years  in  which  they  were  in 
operation  more  than  20,000  men,  hand-picked 
and  of  the  right  type,  and  at  least  15,000  of 
them  received  commissions  to  form  the  nu 
cleus  of  the  80,000  new  officers  who  had  mili 
tary  instruction.  When  war  was  declared, 
this  system  had  been  tried  out  and  was  in  sue- 


A  Soldier's  Reward  249 

cessful  operation,  so  that  it  was  taken  over  at 
once.  Of  the  150,000  applications  received  to 
enter  the  officers'  training  camps,  40,000  were 
chosen,  and  in  forty  days  they  were  ready  to 
begin  their  work.  The  Plattsburg  men  were 
largely  included  in  this  40,000,  and  they  con 
stituted  the  absolutely  necessary  nucleus  of 
instructed  men  to  serve  as  non-commissioned 
officers,  for  the  lack  of  which  long  and  vexa 
tious  delays  must  occur.  The  geometrical 
progression  formed  by  the  numbers  who  at 
tended  the  Plattsburg  camps  during  the  years 
1913  to  1917  is  as  follows:  1913,  222;  1914, 
667;  1915*  3406;  1916,  16,137;  1917  (ist 
camp),  40,000.  No  other  comment  seems 
necessary. 

There  was  of  necessity  the  sharpest  contrast 
between  company  officers  of  the  A.  E.  F.  and 
the  officers  of  higher  command  who  had  been 
jumped  to  positions  which  were  far  outside 
their  experience  and  of  which  they  knew  next 
to  nothing.  This  was  a  result  of  unprepared- 
ness  which  did  not,  however,  reflect  upon 
them.  A  story  which  was  current  in  France 
relates  to  a  distinguished  colonel  on  the  French 


250  Leonard  Wood 

General  Staff  to  whom  was  put  the  typical 
American  question,  "What  do  you  think  of  the 
American  Army?"  Now  the  Frenchman  is 
diplomatic,  but  his  vision  is  remarkably  clear, 
and  after  some  futile  squirming  in  the  hope  of 
avoiding  direct  answer,  the  colonel  replied, 
"There  is  no  better  army  in  Europe  from  the 
captains  down." 

For  having  so  unique  a  responsibility  in 
the  success  of  the  American  doughboy  in  the 
war,  and  at  the  sacrifice  of  his  personal  for 
tunes  having  forced  the  Government  to  ac 
tion,  if  not  indeed  in  time  to  prevent  terrible 
sacrifices,  at  least  in  time  to  prevent  the 
downfall  of  civilization,  General  Wood's  re 
ward,  like  that  of  the  Father  of  his  Country, 
is  in  the  heart  of  his  country.  He  will  in 
creasingly  be  made  aware  that  there  is  a  whole 
some  appreciation  of  what  his  service  has  been, 
and  if  this  should  induce  that  wisdom  which 
springs  from  experience  and  lays  hold  of  its 
bitter  lesson  to  make  preparation  for  the 
future,  Leonard  Wood,  we  may  feel  sure,  will 
ask  no  other  reward.  Furthermore,  his  name 
will  always  be  linked  with  that  of  Roosevelt 


A  Soldier's  Reward  251 

because  he  possesses  the  robust  and  sterling 
qualities  which  drew  the  two  men  together 
and  made  Leonard  Wood  the  man  of  all  others 
whom  Roosevelt  admired  and  loved. 

Like  his  late  friend,  Roosevelt,  Leonard 
Wood  loves  his  home  life  and  is  greatly  de 
voted  to  his  family.  In  his  autobiography, 
Roosevelt  tells  us  how,  when  they  were  together 
in  the  national  capital,  Wood  and  he  took  the 
children  of  both  families  for  frequent  rambles 
in  Rock  Creek  Park  lying  to  the  north  of  the 
city;  and  it  has  been  proposed  to  erect  the 
great  Roosevelt  memorial  on  the  crest  of 
the  hill  in  this  park. 

While  engaged  in  administrative  work  in 
Cuba  or  in  military  duties  in  the  Philippine 
Islands,  Mrs.  Wood  has  accompanied  her  hus 
band,  for  she  is  accustomed  to  the  hardships 
of  an  active  army  officer's  life  and  is,  more 
over,  much  interested  in  outdoor  sports  and 
exercises,  especially  horseback  riding  and  sail 
ing.  Her  people  came  from  the  vicinity  of 
Morristown,  N.  J.,  though  she  was  educated 
in  Washington  and  lived  there  for  much  of 
the  time  before  her  marriage. 


252  Leonard  Wood 

Her  daughter,  Louise  Barbara  Wood,  who 
is  just  completing  her  education,  has  like  her 
mother  been  engaged  in  Red  Cross  work  and 
is  planning  to  go  to  France  to  take  part  in  the 
important  reconstruction  work  there.  The 
Woods  are  Episcopalians. 

Mrs.  Wood  has  done  an  immense  amount  of 
charitable  and  Red  Cross  work  among  the 
poor,  and  for  a  period  of  two  years  before  the 
war  she  was  at  the  head  of  a  large  women's  Red 
Cross  organization  in  New  York  City.  Ever 
since,  wherever  she  has  been,  she  has  kept  up 
her  active  Red  Cross  work,  and  she  has  asso 
ciated  herself  with  the  work  of  the  Young 
Women's  Christian  Association  and  other 
women's  organizations.  She  is  now  the  Hon 
orary  President  of  the  Women's  Roosevelt 
Memorial  Association. 

General  Wood  has  two  sons  and  a  daughter. 
Both  his  sons  responded  promptly  to  their 
country's  call  and  were  in  service  during  the 
war.  Leonard  Wood,  Jr.,  went  to  the  Officers' 
Training  Camp  at  Fort  Oglethorpe,  Ga.,  and 
came  out  as  a  First  Lieutenant.  He  was  as 
signed  to  the  8  ist  Division  at  Camp  Jackson, 


A  Soldier's  Reward  253 

South  Carolina.  He  went  overseas  with  this 
division,  was  later  promoted  to  captain,  and 
became  the  Assistant  Intelligence  Officer  of 
the  division  for  practically  the  remainder  of 
the  war.  He  returned  to  this  country  in  July, 
1919,  was  discharged,  and  is  now  engaged  in 
the  oil  business  in  Texas.  The  younger  son, 
Osborne  C.  Wood,  left  Harvard  University, 
where  he  was  a  student,  in  March,  1918. 
Though  he  was  still  under  age,  he  enlisted  as 
a  private  in  the  Regular  Army.  He  was  later 
transferred  to  the  355th  Infantry  89th  Divi 
sion,  from  which  organization  he  went  to  a 
training  camp.  He  was  graduated  as  Second 
Lieutenant  in  August,  1918,  and  on  becoming 
of  age  on  the  2Oth  of  September  he  was  com 
missioned  with  that  rank.  He  was  assigned 
to  the  1 64th  Depot  Brigade  at  Fort  Funston, 
Kansas,  and  a  little  later  was  appointed  Aide- 
de-Camp  to  the  General,  in  which  capacity  he 
has  served  since.  August  23,  1919,  he  was 
promoted  to  First  Lieutenant. 


ADDENDUM 

THE  RESTORER  OF  LAW  AND  ORDER 

EVERY  great  and  exhaustive  war  in  the 
course  of  human  history  has  been  followed  by 
an  interval  characterized  by  an  abnormal  and 
extremely  dangerous  condition  of  the  body 
politic.  The  mass  psychology  of  these  periods 
may  be  described  as  that  of  national  shell- 
shock,  to  borrow  a  phrase  which  the  war  has 
given  us.  The  several  dominating  symptoms 
of  this  nervous  disorder  of  the  state  are 
all  well  defined  and  invariably  present,  but 
collectively  they  may  be  described  as  a  fixed 
obsession  that  the  foundations  of  the  political, 
social,  industrial,  and  intellectual  life  of  the 
world  are  in  a  state  of  flux,  and  that  those 
things  which  have  been  our  reliance  in  the  past 
are  all  to  be  replaced  by  a  new  and  superior 
order.  The  millennium  is  envisioned  as  heaven 
is  brought  down  to  earth. 

1  January,  1920. 

255 


256  Leonard  Wood 

These  epochs  of  pseudo-idealism  are  ushered 
in  by  such  an  eruption  of  emotions  that  the 
seat  of  reason  seems  likely  to  become  unhinged, 
and  from  this  distemper  no  social  class  is 
altogether  exempt,  though  the  proletariat  and 
the  most  highly  intellectual  stratum  have 
always  been  by  far  the  most  susceptible.  At 
the  bottom  of  the  social  scale,  the  mob  spirit  is 
easily  invoked  by  radicals  seeking  to  set  up  an 
autocracy  based  on  false  and  shallow  but  most 
alluring  Utopian  ideals — ideals  which  are 
largely  supplied  by  generally  well-meaning 
but  most  unpractical  representatives  of  the 
intelligentzia.  Roused  to  a  state  of  incipient 
insanity  by  the  teachings  of  these  leaders,  the 
mob  tears  at  the  very  foundations  of  the  state. 
The  fundamental  right  of  property  is  denied, 
and  government  by  threat  and  intimidation  is 
attempted.  In  the  higher  strata  of  society, 
there  is  an  alarming  recrudescence  of  the 
occult,  which  is  greatly  stimulated  by  the  loss 
of  kinsmen  in  battle.  No  illusion  is  too 
preposterous  to  find  converts,  and  if  stimu 
lated  by  powerful  propaganda,  such  illusions 
constitute  a  serious  menace  to  the  state. 


Addendum  257 

These  post-war  periods  call  for  a  steadying 
hand  as  do  no  others. 

The  symptoms  of  national  and  international 
shell-shock  have  been  much  more  marked  and 
far  reaching  in  the  present  period  only  because 
the  war  itself  has  been  so  much  greater  and 
more  nearly  world  wide  in  its  effects.  Start 
ing  in  Russia,  the  country  in  which  the  war 
losses  and  the  sufferings  of  the  people  resulting 
from  it  have  been  most  stupendous,  the  disease 
has  spread  eastward  into  Siberia  and  westward 
across  Europe  to  America;  the  resistance  to 
its  invasion  being  determined  both  by  the  de 
gree  of  exhaustion  and  war  weariness  within 
each  state  and  by  the  former  measure  of 
vigor  of  the  body  politic. 

In  our  own  country  the  first  more  serious 
outbreaks  of  after-war  insanity  appeared  as 
race  riots  accompanied  by  indiscriminate 
shooting,  lynching,  and  arson.  The  riots  of 
east  St.  Louis  were  soon  followed  by  similar 
eruptions  in  Knoxville,  Washington,  and  Chi 
cago.  Many  people  were  shot  in  street  battles 
and  the  infection  seemed  to  be  spreading  with 
dangerous  rapidity  throughout  the  country. 
17 


258  Leonard  Wood 

Late  in  September,  these  outbreaks  of  lawless 
ness  seemed  to  be  reaching  a  climax  at  Oma 
ha,  where  the  court-house  and  the  jail  were 
burned  by  a  mob  of  citizens  and  where  the 
sixty-year-old  mayor  was  seized  by  the  mob 
and  strung  up  to  a  telegraph  pole  because  in 
discharge  of  his  duty  he  had  refused  to  deliver 
up  a  negro  prisoner.  Cut  down  before  life  be 
came  extinct,  he  was  hauled  up  a  second  time 
to  be  again  rescued.  Rendered  unconscious, 
for  hours  his  life  hung  in  the  balance,  but  he 
finally  recovered.  The  mayor  thus  put  out 
of  the  way,  the  negro  prisoner  was  delivered 
over  to  the  mob  by  his  fellow  prisoners  when 
they  were  placed  in  danger  of  being  roasted 
alive  by  the  burning  of  the  jail.  He  was 
promptly  hanged  and  his  body  was  trailed 
behind  an  automobile  through  the  streets  to 
the  wild  delight  of  a  mob  of  normally  respect 
able  citizens.  Nothing  approaching  these 
disgraceful  proceedings  had  ever  occurred 
in  an  American  city.  Everything  was  done 
openly  and  was  apparently  approved  by  the 
greater  portion  of  the  citizens  of  Omaha. 
Clerks  and  even  "lady"  stenographers  were, 


Addendum  259 

according  to  the  correspondent  of  the  New 
York  Times,  openly  boasting  of  their  part  in 
the  proceedings,  including  the  murder  of  the 
negro  and  the  attempted  murder  of  the  mayor. 
Upon  this  scene  of  disorder  and  violence, 
came  federal  troops  hastily  summoned  under 
the  command  of  General  Wood  who  was 
in  charge  of  the  Central  Department  of  the 
Army  with  headquarters  at  Chicago.  Ma 
chine  guns  were  posted  at  strategic  points  and 
the  streets  patrolled  by  squads  of  soldiers. 
A  military  balloon  was  sent  up  and  swayed 
back  and  forth  over  the  city  to  give  immediate 
warning  of  the  outbreak  of  fires  or  of  attempts 
at  disorder.  This  was,  however,  not  all. 
The  seat  of  the  entire  trouble  was  removed 
when  measures  were  taken  to  apprehend  all  per 
sons  who  had  taken  part  in  the  murder  and  to 
bring  them  to  justice  by  turning  them  over 
to  the  civil  authorities  for  legal  prosecution. 
General  Wood  issued  the  following  proclama 
tion: 

As  a  result  of  the  recent  serious  defiance  of 
law  and  of  the  constituted  authorities  of  the 


260  Leonard  Wood 

City  of  Omaha,  the  Governor  of  Nebraska 
has  called  upon  the  President  of  the  United 
States  for  federal  aid  in  the  maintenance  of 
law  and  order,  and  the  undersigned  has 
been  duly  charged  by  the  Secretary  of  War, 
acting  under  competent  authority,  with  the 
preservation  of  order  and  the  safeguarding 
of  life  and  property  in  the  City  of  Omaha. 
To  this  end,  such  instructions  as  may  be 
come  necessary  will,  from  time  to  time,  be 
issued.  All  persons  within  the  limits  of 
the  City  of  Omaha  will  obey  such  instruc 
tions  as  may  be  issued  and  will  co-operate 
to  the  fullest  extent  in  carrying  out  the 
same. 

Those  persons  who  had  been  proudly  boast 
ing  of  their  part  in  the  disgraceful  proceedings 
now  became  frightened  and  spared  no  effort  to 
make  themselves  as  inconspicuous  as  possible 
or  else  to  slip  away  from  the  city.  Normal 
conditions  were  quickly  restored  and  the  race 
riots  of  our  American  cities  seemed  to  have 
come  to  an  end.  Law  and  order  had  not  alone 
been  re-established  in  one  sorely  threatened 


Addendum  261 

community,  but  the  seat  of  the  trouble  had 
been  located  and  the  remedy  found. 

Hardly  had  the  troubles  at  Omaha  been 
settled,  when  the  great  steel  strike  drew  the 
nation's  attention  to  the  industrial  center  at 
Gary  near  the  city  of  Chicago.  The  month  of 
September  had  been  characterized  by  a  veri 
table  epidemic  of  strikes  in  one  trade  after 
another  until  the  paralysis  of  all  the  nation's 
industry  was  threatened. 

On  October  4th  an  alarming  situation  de 
veloped  at  Gary,  the  center  of  a  steel  produc 
ing  district  in  which  80,000  men  had  struck, 
where  the  blast  furnaces  of  the  steel  company's 
plant  were  damaged  by  the  strikers  to  the 
extent  of  a  million  dollars,  and  where  the  out 
put  of  necessary  steel  products  was  reduced  by 
no  less  than  2,000,000  tons.  On  October  6th 
federal  aid  was  invoked,  and  after  disturbances 
in  which  a  mob  of  15,000  rioters  had  charged 
the  police  with  bricks  and  stones,  General 
Wood  took  charge  of  the  situation.  A  body  of 
1000  overseas  veterans  of  the  4th  Division 
was  rushed  to  Gary  armed  with  rifles,  artillery, 
and  machine  guns,  and  other  soldiers  from  the 


262  Leonard  Wood 

6th  Division  later  joined  them.  Guns  were 
mounted  in  parks  and  other  strategic  points 
and  directed  down  the  principal  thoroughfares. 
Many  of  the  strikers  had  appeared  in  the 
uniform  of  the  United  States  Army,  and  acting 
under  orders  of  General  Wood,  Colonel  Mapes 
required  these  men  to  show  their  discharge 
papers.  If  they  insisted  on  wearing  their 
uniform  they  were  set  to  work  to  maintain 
order ;  otherwise  they  were  required  to  remove 
their  uniform  and  were  dismissed  with  a  warn 
ing.  They  became  an  important  aid  in  main 
taining  order. 

No  attempt  whatever  was  made  to  inter 
fere  in  the  quarrel  between  the  strikers  and 
the  operators,  and  picketing  by  strikers  was 
permitted.  Law  and  order  were  however  in 
sisted  upon  and  no  violence  permitted. 

The  following  proclamation  was  issued: 

PROCLAMATION 

GARY,  INDIANA, 
October  6,  1919. 

I.     The  Governor  of  the  State  of  Indiana, 
having  called  upon  the  Department  Com- 


Addendum  263 

mander  for  Federal  Troops,  for  the  protec 
tion  of  life  and  property  and  the  maintenance 
of  public  order,  the  State  and  City  authori 
ties  being  unable  to  protect  and  maintain 
the  same,  the  Commanding  General,  Central 
Department,  acting  under  instructions  and 
authority  of  the  War  Department,  has  as 
sumed  control  of  the  City  of  Gary,  Indiana, 
which  until  further  orders,  is  under  Military 
Control. 

2.  It  is  the  purpose  of  the  Military  Au 
thorities  to  conduct  the  affairs  of  the  City  of 
Gary,  to  the  greatest  extent  possible,  through 
the  City  Government,  which  becomes  for 
the  time  being  an  agency  of  the  Military 
Authorities. 

3.  The  following  notice  is  given  to  all 
persons  within  the  limits    of  the  City  of 
Gary: 

(a)  No  public  assemblages  or  meetings 

will  be  permitted  in  any  park, 
street,  or  portion  of  the  City. 

(b)  All    processions    and    parades    are 

prohibited,  as  are  demonstra 
tions  against  the  authorities. 


264  Leonard  Wood 

(c)  No  persons  other  than  the  police, 

Military  Authorities,  troops, 
and  members  of  the  City  Gov 
ernment  will  be  allowed  to 
carry  arms  or  weapons  of  any 
description. 

(d)  All  men    in    the    uniform    of   the 

United  States,  whether  in  the 
service  of  the  United  States  or 
otherwise,  who  are  not  a  part 
of  the  United  States  armed 
forces  on  duty  within  the  City 
limits,  will  be  examined  and 
those  who  are  still  in  the  ser 
vice  of  the  United  States  will 
be  attached  to  any  organi 
zation  on  duty  in  the  City 
and  continued  on  duty  during 
the  present  disturbance.  All 
others  in  United  States  uni 
form  (not  in  the  service  of  the 
United  States)  will  be  held 
until  further  investigation. 

(e)  All  men  deputized  as  police  who 

are   wearing   any   portion   of 


Addendum  265 

the  distinctive  uniform  of 
the  United  States  will  wear 
their  special  badge  on  the  left 
breast. 

(f)  The  troops  and  the  police,  including 
special  police  deputies,  are 
charged  with  the  carrying  out 
of  these  instructions  which 
will  be  rigidly  enforced. 

4.  Theatres,  Lecture  Halls,  Moving  Pic 
ture  Shows,  and  other  well  conducted  places 
of  amusement  will  continue  as  usual. 

5.  All  persons  within   the   City  limits 
are  admonished  to   observe  and  carefully 
and   rigidly    comply    with   the   above  in 
structions. 

6.  Any  person  or  persons  having  any 
petition  to  present  or  complaint  to  make 
will  present  the  same  to  the  commanding 
officer  for  his  consideration  and  action. 

LEONARD  WOOD, 
Major-General,  U.  S.  Army. 

The  support  of  both  parties  to  the  strike  was 
obtained  by  this  course.     It  soon  developed 


266  Leonard  Wood 

that  the  strikes  were  being  directed  by  alien 
"reds,"  and,  acting  with  the  agents  of  the 
Department  of  Justice,  a  vigorous  search  was 
instituted  and  the  "red"  headquarters  raided. 
October  I4th  a  plot  was  unearthed  to  destroy 
government  property  and  to  initiate  a  general 
uprising  of  steel  workers  headed  by  "red" 
agitators  which  was  to  cover  all  the  territory 
from  Colorado  to  West  Virginia.  Connection 
was  traced  between  the  activities  of  the  Gary 
"reds "  and  the  bomb  outrages  which  had  been 
directed  against  the  lives  of  Attorney-General 
Palmer,  Judge  Charles  C.  Nott,  and  others, 
in  the  months  of  May  and  June.  These 
revelations  greatly  cleared  up  the  situation 
by  showing  up  the  radical  leadership  of  the 
disturbances.  On  October  24th,  at  the  end 
of  the  fifth  week,  the  strike  was  practically 
over. 

In  November  serious  disturbances  occurred 
in  the  coal  mining  districts  of  West  Virginia 
and  large  forces  of  armed  miners  were  march 
ing  from  one  district  into  another.  Governor 
Cornwell  called  upon  General  Wood  for  assist 
ance,  and  without  delay  about  1200  troops  of 


Addendum  267 

the  ist  Division  were  sent  into  the  district 
and  all  hostile  movements  ceased  and  much 
bloodshed  was  avoided. 

Later  on,  during  the  coal  strike,  which  was 
a  strike  aimed  against  the  public,  the  poor 
as  well  as  the  rich,  the  Governor  of  Kansas, 
interested  in  the  necessity  of  securing  coal  for 
hospitals  and  other  places,  decided  to  under 
take  mining  operations  with  volunteers.  After 
conference  with  General  Wood,  the  latter 
agreed  to  establish  an  encampment  for  regular 
troops  in  the  mining  district  so  that  in  case 
of  need  the  protection  of  life  and  property 
would  be  insured. 

During  the  employment  of  troops,  both  in 
West  Virginia  and  Kansas,  the  best  of  rela 
tions  existed  between  the  people,  the  working 
groups,  and  the  troops  and  no  one  was  injured. 
Order  was  preserved  and  life  and  property 
were  safeguarded. 

Firmness,  combined  with  tact  and  fairness, 
had  relieved  an  alarming  situation  without  the 
loss  of  a  life  or  the  firing  of  a  shot,  and  the 
faith  of  the  nation's  citizenry  in  the  stability 
of  the  foundations  of  the  state  had  been 


Leonard  Wood 

enormously  increased.  For  the  period  of 
hysteria  through  which  we  are  now  passing, 
the  constant  watchword  of  General  Wood 
is  "steady." 


PARTIAL  LIST  OF  WRITINGS  OF  GENERAL 
LEONARD  WOOD 

/The  Military  Government  of  Cuba,"  Am.  Acad.  of  Pol.  &  Social 
Science,  vol.  xxi.,  1903,  pp.  153-183. 

"Training  for  War  in  a  Time  of  Peace,"  illustrated,  Outlook,  vol. 
xciii.,  Dec.  25,  1909,  pp. 


"Rifle  Practice  for  Public  Schools,"  Collier's,   vol.   xlvi.,    Dec. 
17,  1910,  p.  16. 

"Teaching  Americans  to  Shoot,"   Collier's,  vol.  xlvii.,  Aug.  12, 
191  1,  pp.  15-30. 

"What  Is  the  Matter  with  Our  Army?"  Independent,  vol.  Ixxii., 
Feb.  8,  1912,  pp.  301-307. 

"Why  We  Have  No  Army,"  McClure's  Magazine,  vol.  xxxviii., 
May,  1912,  pp.  667-683. 

Address  at  Ohio  State  University  in  1914  on  "Military  Training 
in  Colleges."     (Privately  printed.) 

"The  Army's  New  and  Bigger  Job,"  World's  Work,  vol.  xxviii., 
May,  1914,  pp.  75-84- 

Facts  of  Interest  Concerning  the  Military  Resources  and  Policy  of 
the  United  States,  War  Department,  Washington,  1914,  pp.32. 

The  Moral  Obligation  of  Citizenship,  Princeton  University  Press, 
,  PP-  76. 


The  Constructive  Work  of  the  American  Army,"  Annals  Amer 
ican  Academy  Pol.  and  Soc.  Science,  vol.  Ixi.,  1915,  pp.  257- 
262. 

Universal  Military  Training,"  Proc.  and  Add.  Nat.  Educat<Assoc., 
vol.  liv.,  1916,  pp.  159-165. 

269 


270  Leonard  Wood 


Our  Military  History,  Its  Facts  and  Fallacies,  Chicago,  The  Reilly 
and  Britton  Company,  1916,  pp.  240. 

Address  on  "Preparation  for  National  Defence"  made  before  the 
Chamber  of  Commerce  of  the  State  of  New  York,  March  22, 
1916,  pp.  7. 

"Plattsburg  and  Citizenship,"  Century  Magazine,  vol.  Ixxii., 
May,  1917,  pp.  49-54. 

Universal  Military  Training.  Statements  made  by  Major  Gen 
eral  Leonard  Wood  before  the  Senate  Subcommittee,  and 
the  House  Committee  on  Military  Affairs,  Washington,  1917, 
pp.  111-151,  257-308,  967-1107.  (Hearings  of  December 
18,  1916,  Jan.  27  and  31,  1917.) 


BOOKS  AND  ARTICLES  CONCERNING 
GENERAL  LEONARD  WOOD 

./^THEODORE  ROOSEVELT.  "General  Leonard  Wood,  a  Model 
American  Military  Administrator,"  Outlook,  vol.  Ixi.,  Jan. 
7,  1899,  pp.  19-22. 

HENRY  HARRISON  LEWIS.  "General  Wood  at  Santiago,  Amer 
icanizing  a  Cuban  City,"  Fortnightly  Review,  vol.  Ixxi.,  March 
i,  1899,  PP-  40I~4i2. 

SECRETARY  OF  WAR.  "Attack  by  United  States  Troops  on 
Mount  Dajo,"  Senate  Doc.  289,  ist  Sess.  59th  Cong.,  1905 
-06  (full  correspondence  exonerating  General  Wood  from 
charges  of  inhumanity  displayed  in  this  battle). 

ROBERT  HAMMOND  MURRAY.  "The  Pacifier  of  th$  Philippines, 
the  Strenuous  and  Adventurous  Career  of  General  Leonard 
Wood,  '  a  Soldier  of  the  New  Army, '  who  Returns  to  a  De 
partmental  Command  in  the  United  States,"  World's  Work, 
vol.  xvi.,  Oct.,  1908,  pp.  10,773-10,778. 

JAMES  CREELMAN.     Pearson's  Magazine,  March,  1909. 
RAY  STANNARD  BAKER.*  "General  Leonard  Wood,"  American 
Magazine,  vol.  Ixix.,  1910,  pp.  760-764. 

THEODORE  ROOSEVELT.  "Leonard  Wood,"  Outlook,  vol.  xcv., 
July  30,  1910,  pp.  711-713. 

HENRY  A.  WISE  WOOD.  "General  Wood  and  Preparedness," 
Nation,  March  2,  1916,  p.  251. 

EDITORIAL.  "The  Removal  of  Major  General  Wood,"  Scientific 
American,  April  14,  1917,  p.  368.  * 

ISAAC  F.  MARCOSSEN.  "Leonard  Wood — American,  Man  of  the 
Hour,"  Everybody's  Magazine,  vol.  xxxvi.,  Mar.,  1917,  pp. 
257-269. 

271 


272  Leonard  Wood 

ISAAC  F.  MARCOSSEN.     Leonard  Wood,  Prophet  of  Preparedness, 
New  York,  John  Lane,  1917,  pp.  92. 

EDITORIAL.     "Resentment  over  Treatment  of  General  Wood," 
Current  Opinion,  vol.  Ixv.,  July,  1918,  pp.  3-4. 

JOSEPH  HAMBLEN  SEARS.      The  Career  of  Leonard  Wood,   illus 
trated,  Appletons,  1919,  pp.  273. 


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